Haiti, The Island Of Hispaniola

After one year by the grace of God I was finally able to travel to Haiti. Not only did I go myself, but I had the privilege of bringing nine other beautiful girls with me. My mission was to deliver the jewelry collected from various friends, family members, community members, and colleagues.

As soon as I arrived in Haiti on Sunday, March 4th, my director told me that there were around eighty women who came to the compound today. This was more than the amount of women that usually visit on Sundays so I was excited. After individually packaging all of the jewelry there was still over 500 pieces of jewelry available to give.

The first thing I did was give a small speech in Haitian Creole. Enthusiastically, I told them how the earthquake had affected me all the way in America and my passion for wanting to help Haiti. In even more words, I explained to them how as women, especially women of the same culture, we are sisters, and even though I may not know you by name, I love you and this is a gift not only from me but from other women in America who love you as well.

The women were joyful and excited to receive a gift that day. My most memorable moments were putting necklaces on women and helping them pick out nice earrings. I never realized just how much something so small or meaningless to some people, such as jewelry, could bring such happiness and joy to someone else. Indeed, somebody's trash (unwanted jewelry) became somebody else's treasure. Every women left the compound with at least one new piece of jewelry.

Haiti, I'm Finally Going Home

Since I last posted, I've been working on finding a way to get back to Haiti, in a manner that worked with my study, school and work schedule. After lots of deliberation, planning and prayer, I am finally going back to Haiti on Saturday. Though I will only be there for a four short days, the itinerary is packed and ready to explore. I'm excited because I get to see some of my immediate family members, of which I've only had the pleasure of meeting when I was nine years old and I first went to Haiti and through Facebook. I'm most excited to see the destruction of Haiti, meet the children in the orphanages, and meet the women that I will be giving the jewelry too. The next post I write from my trip to Haiti.

Drive Supply

As of today, I have sent out a few requests for funding and donations from various groups of people who have been a blessing onto my life. My budget as of today is $1461.00 which includes my plane ticket, lodging for 7 days, a camera for the documentary, and emergency money. As of right now, I've only been promised one donation for sure. Hopefully this week, I will receive some more updates or notifications from donors. In the next few weeks, I will be sharpening an official proposal for Diamonds In The Rough: GEMS for Haiti for any public appeals I must make to gather funding. Also this week, I will be taking two more classes at the Foundation Center downtown on grant writing.


Today, I sat down with my sister and her boyfriend and sorted the jewelry into different piles and counted them. This post will be a majority pictures for those of you who wanted to see what type of jewelry was collected.

Though this count may be a little off, the count that I got as of now is 575 pieces of jewelry, including sets of jewelry. There are 215 bracelets, 7 watches, 138 necklaces, 173 pairs of earrings, 17 jewelry sets, 20 rings, 6 pins and 1 toe ring.
Tomorrow, I will go to the nearest store to find jewelry repairing services and baggies to get a more accurate count. Here are the pictures I've taken.

the single pictures are the ones of some really nice pieces of jewelry, some with pearls, gold chains, and really nice detail. It's never too late to make a donation. Please contact me if need be =)

My Drive For The Drive

The George Washington Carver Scholarship Fund (GWCSF) is a non profit organization where students in need of money learn how to write grants and apply for grant money through various funders. A portion of the grant money received from successful grants will be awarded to the student for tuition money and various other educational expenses. This scholarship fund is reared towards students who attend historically black colleges.

A representative from this fund came to Spelman in February to talk about grant writing. I missed the class but was interested in finding any internship opportunities that were available. I searched through my Spelman email, found the number and called up the foundation. Now, a week and a half later, I am on my way to making Diamonds In The Rough a non profit organization and funding my internship in Haiti.

Part of volunteering with the GWCSF is personal determination and work. I started attending classes on grant writing and non profit organizations at the Foundation Center located in the Hurt building in downtown Atlanta. In these free classes that I've taken so far, I've learned the basics on preparing a proposal and budgeting basics. These classes are preparing me to write for grant money to support my drive.

This week, I've volunteered two days already. I've worked closely with Mr. Marvin Williams to compose letters of request for funding to organizations and companies. So far, I have applied for funding towards my trip from three different places. Tomorrow, I will send out my letter to seven more places, in hopes that some of these places will view my drive and cause worthy enough to aid financially. So far, one donation is in the making through the scholarship fund. I'm really praying that I can find all the funds for this trip by July. Right now, I am making the last few revisions to the budget, which has increased to around $1700.00. This includes the plane ticket, lodging, a good camera for the documentary, and extra emergency money.

Tomorrow, I have an interview for tutoring services. Following that, I will finally sort through my jewelry and get a count of just how many pieces I've collected. Next week, I will be working more with the Haitian American Caucus to plan the event centered on women empowerment in Haiti.

Drive On A Run

With the help of my Spelman sisters, I was able to collect a large amount of jewelry. This was a great start. Elation began to fill my soul as I thought about just how many new boundaries I can set as I work on this drive. I recently contacted my old high school here in Mcdonough Georgia *Henry County High School* and hosted my drive there as well through the faculty and students. I was able to get a nice amount of jewelry from there as well.

Margaret Armoo-Daniels, who is the new second attendant to Miss Spelman saw some advertising for my drive, and referred me to the Haitian American Caucus.The caucus had hosted an alternative spring break where students from the AUC had the opportunity to travel to Haiti and work on different internships. She inquired about me so I got their contact information and began emailing and calling.

Two months later, I am now on a mission. Instead of sending my jewelry via mail, I will be traveling on an internship to Haiti through the Haitian American Caucus. In fact, I will sort of be creating my own internship because my project is about women empowerment and has not been done before. The task before me now is raising enough money to pay for the plane ticket and the stay, *$25 a day*

As of right now I plan on going July 30th- August 5th. Rebecca, one of the sight leaders, will be working with me as the date approaches to find designated shelters and to host a special event where the jewelry will be distributed. I thank God that something so small has been slowly expanding through the support of friends, family, and others who wish to lead and serve.

My next step is to raise the necessary funds, and sort through all of the jewelry *pictures coming soon*

Launching The Drive

"I have some reliable people in Haiti who we can send the jewelry too. They can distribute the jewelry to the shelters nearby. All you have to do is collect it and I'll help you" This was my mother's reply over the phone to my idea.

At this moment, I laid out the basics of my drive. Jewelry of any sort would be collected whether it be costume, prom, fashion, real, fake, ethnic etc. The only thing is the jewelry had to be in good condition. When I say good, I meant the type of jewelry that, let's say your younger sister or a girlfriend came into your room and saw that necklace or bracelet, you would give it to them because it was still in wearable condition. The collected jewelry would then be sent to Haiti. The recipients would include any women who were affected by the earthquake or reside in shelters.

My next step was to find out how to carry out the jewelry drive. Ms. Candice Jones is the "CEO" of the Office of Student Life and Engagement at Spelman college. That December, I kept in mind that the anniversary would be coming up and there would be lots of initiatives to remember the earthquake. In January, while I was still on winter break, I called up Ms. Jones and I told her my idea. She loved it, and told me to connect with Shirley Noel, who was the second attendant to Miss Spelman. She was of Haitian descent and would be launching a platform aimed towards Haiti relief for the second semester. By February, with the help of Ms. Jones, Shirley Noel, and with the support of the Caribbean American Student Association, and W.O.R.T.H. (student organizations I was apart of), I was ready to launch my project.

On Wednesday, March 17th 2010, I had a table set out in the Manley Student Center from 12 pm to 2 pm, where I alongside with a few of my friends and supporters, showcased my project and collected jewelry. My very first donor was a close friend's mother so I used her jewelry as examples. Luckily, there was a table nearby from LEADS. They asked me about my project and told me to keep them updated because they liked the idea.

In fact, everyone liked my idea. The drive was very successful on Wednesday and I did it again at the market Friday event that same week. I also had girls come by and leave things in the Office of Student Life and personally link up with me to collect.

The next step was to figure out where to send the jewelry......