Contributor: Holly Wolfe

Photo credit: UW Tacoma

These days it’s hard for me to find time to sit down for dinner. My roommate jokes with me that she never sees me eat. I eat plenty alright, but it’s always on the go! Yogurt and a granola bar travel the best between work, the library and meetings with professors. I’m in my final semester of grad school, during which it’s often hard to remember what it’s like to pause and enjoy a movie, take the time to read for pleasure or leisurely eat with a fork and knife! But a few weeks ago, for one day – my entire world slowed down. All of those work projects, school deadlines and daily pressures seemed to melt away and I was reminded about what’s most important in life.

On January 12, 2011, I organized an event called “Haiti: One Year Later” on my campus at the University of Washington Tacoma, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake. The goal of the event was to raise awareness about the issues still facing Haiti today and raise funds to support the incredible work Mercy Corps is doing in Haiti, providing relief and facilitating change.

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Mercy Corps is a team of 3,700 world-class-professionals capably trained to provide relief in the most desperate situations, like continuing crises in Haiti. Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

I was thinking this week about what makes Mercy Corps so special. It’s not the colorful photo-splashed website where I browse for reports from the forty countries where Mercy Corps works. It’s not the Facebook page or the Mercy Corps Blog where I read stories of people facing daily challenges with hope and determination. It’s not even the climate of customer service at Mercy Corps — the fact that there’s always someone to thank me for my support and to answer all my questions (although that is pretty incredible!).

What it really boils down to is this: Mercy Corps is a team of 3,700 world-class-professionals capably trained to provide relief in the most desperate situations. It's a team that works hard every day to make sure my support is utilized for maximum good. These aren’t skill sets that just anyone has. Mercy Corps field staff are equipped to deal with natural disasters, extreme poverty and complex social conflict. In short, they are experts in every sense of the word.

Recently, I had to face a difficult choice. After much thought, a fair amount of tears and some consultation with those close to me, I decided not to travel to Haiti this December. My decision came on the heels of Hurricane Tomas and in the midst of Haiti’s growing cholera epidemic, which has hospitalized 21,000 people and killed 1,200 so far. Many factors were weighed in my decision: health and safety risks, strain on resources in a nation with severely limited infrastructure and the incredible demands facing the organization (Friends of the Orphans) who’ll be hosting the group I would’ve traveled with. But the number one factor in my decision was this: I’m not an expert.

I don’t have any medical skills or disaster relief experience to bring to the people of Haiti. And let’s face it, for all the compassion and good intention I would have brought along, it’s not what Haiti needs. Haiti needs clean water, Haiti needs cholera prevention, Haiti needs stability (none of which would’ve fit neatly into my carry-on suitcase).

Don’t get me wrong — Haiti needs me — just in a different way. Haiti needs me to be aware, to keep hoping, and to never forget. Most of all, Haiti needs me to continue supporting organizations like Mercy Corps, without which, thousands of people would have lacked life-saving support over the last ten months. And you know what? Haiti needs you too! Because every dollar toward relief is a dollar toward clean water which prevents the spread of cholera. And every dollar toward rebuilding is a dollar toward a future where one million Haitians don’t call a tent their “home.”

It’s not just about Haiti, it’s about a better world; a better world Mercy Corps helps make possible every day for the 17 million people they serve. Maybe someday I’ll travel to Haiti, back to Africa or to other places I’ve been longing to go. But for now, I’ll invest my faith and my financial support in the Mercy Corps team. They are the experts after all. And that’s pretty special if you ask me.

*Holly is working to raise $10,000 for Mercy Corps' efforts in Haiti, to make a donation to her fundraiser, please click here.

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Inspired by Mercy Corps' tireless efforts, I ended my last blog wondering what more I could do with my time, resources and talents to help Haiti? Sometimes, fate has a way of answering our questions…

My new roommate Rachel (right) was in Haiti when the earthquake struck. She survived, but her friend Molly did not. Photo: Courtesy of Holly Wolfe

My new roommate — as of this month — is named Rachel Prusynski. As it turns out, Rachel was in Haiti volunteering and visiting her good friend Molly Hightower last January when the tragic earthquake hit. The building Rachel and Molly were in collapsed around them. Rachel made it out alive; Molly did not. When Rachel told me her story, my heart broke for her and for the Hightower family; but it lifted a little when Rachel spoke about the activism she has taken on since the earthquake in Molly’s honor. Rachel has organized fundraisers, put on a benefit concert and traveled through three states speaking about her experience as an earthquake survivor.

I can’t help but feel that Rachel and I meeting this summer was no coincidence! Like Mercy Corps, Rachel inspires me to continue hoping for Haiti. So you can imagine my surprise and excitement when Rachel asked me recently if I would return to Haiti with her later this year. Just like that, I’ve been given opportunity to donate my time and my talents to help a country in extraordinary need! This December, Rachel and I will embark on a 17-day-long trip to Haiti to volunteer our time with Friends of the Orphans (the organization where Molly lived and worked).

In anticipation of our trip which we are calling the "Heal, Help, Hope Initiative", we are raising support for two organizations (that we love) doing work in Haiti: Mercy Corps and Friends of the Orphans. I’m raising support for Mercy Corps because I deeply believe in what they do. Mercy Corps works on the ground in countries like Haiti with integrity, with creativity and with a steadfastness that’s simply amazing!

In honor of our trip: will you make a donation on my fundraising page to Mercy Corps for Recovery and Rebuilding in Haiti? Your gift, however small, is a sign that we haven't forgotten what happened; and that, together, we still hold out hope.

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My name is Holly Wolfe and I believe in the power of change.

When I was nine, I vowed to my mother that, one day, I would move to Africa. She looked at me like I told her I wanted to move to Mars! But it was too late, I was convinced — and it only took a fourth-grade social studies assignment and a few library books with colorful photos to persuade me. My mother will tell you that, from that moment on, I never stopped “planning” my big move to Africa. Something happened to me when I picked up those library books: I was changed.

Photo: courtesy of Holly Wolfe

A decade later, my childhood dream became a reality. Through the help of scholarships and grants, I spent five months living abroad in East Africa, studying, volunteering and traveling in a part of the world I had been falling in love with for more than ten years. I experienced only a portion Africa’s richness, struggles, beauty and history — but once again I was changed. It’s been six years since my time abroad, but Africa still remains a part of my daily thoughts and prayers.

These days, I spend my time grant-making for The Russell Family Foundation in Gig Harbor, Washington. I sift through hundreds of funding proposals from non-profit organizations every year, looking for projects that demonstrate the highest potential for the greatest impact. To do my job well, I continually have to ask myself: how does change happen?

Does change happen from the top down or the bottom up? Does it happen to one person at a time or on a community-wide-scale? Should we work to change our systems or the people that operate within them? I still wrestle with the answers to questions like these. But along the way, I have picked up a few ideas about what facilitates change. Three factors repeatedly stand out to me, which I like to call the "Change Trifecta.” They are:

Time, Resources and Talent.

When people are willing to give in these three areas for the causes they care about most — change happens. It’s true of the organizations that I fund through my work at the foundation and it’s true of organizations I personally support like Mercy Corps.

Since the day the devastating earthquake hit, Mercy Corps has been employing the “Change Trifecta” in Haiti. Staff and volunteers spend time with vulnerable children through the “Comfort for Kids” and “Moving Forward” programs; they provide resources for Haitian families meeting basic needs like water, food and shelter; and they support the talents of Haitians to rebuild their country and their economy through “cash-for-work” initiatives.

Reading about Mercy Corps’ unwavering efforts to bring about change in Haiti makes me feel like I’m nine years old again, working on my social studies report: wide-eyed, captivated and hopeful. It makes me wonder what more I could do with my time, resources and talents to help Haiti? What more could we all do? And how might we be changed as a result?

I believe in the power of change — because I’ve seen it, because I’ve felt it and because I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of it. I believe in it for Africa, for Haiti, for all of us. The question is: do you?

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 was an average day — or so I thought. As I sat drinking my afternoon coffee, a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti, more than three thousand miles away from where I was in Washington state.

The news didn’t sink in until the following day. I was one of millions of people around the world who tuned in to the aftermath, saddened and horrified by the state of unthinkable disaster. For many of us, it brought to mind Hurricane Katrina and the mega-tsunami of 2004, among other tragedies from our collective past. These disasters had all touched me in some way, but the earthquake in Haiti truly broke my heart.

Holly Wolfe with children she met during her work in Haiti. Photo: courtesy of Holly Wolfe

Just six months before the earthquake hit, I'd spent time in Haiti and the Dominican Republic studying Environmental Justice, Health and Human Rights. I experienced firsthand the daily hardships the people on that island were facing: polluted slums, deteriorating natural resources and a lack of access to medical care, fair education and clean water. I knew the earthquake had hit an already incredibly-impoverished nation, bringing the devastation and desperation to a whole new level.

The day after the earthquake, I called my sister, a former employee with Mercy Corps. I trust my sister more than anyone in the world, so I believed her when she assured me that a donation to Mercy Corps would be used quickly, efficiently and with steadfast integrity to help Haiti. I went online and donated $50 to Mercy Corps. But I wondered — would my small donation make a difference in such an overwhelming disaster? Surely there had to be something more I could do.

I didn’t want my time abroad and my passion for Haiti to be in vain, so I made a quick decision: I created a Personal Fundraising Page through Mercy Corps’ website. It only took a few minutes to get up and running and I was even able to add a photo from my time in Haiti and a personalized note to encourage giving. I linked my page to my Facebook account, as well as emailing it to 150 of my friends, family and co-workers.

“Please give!” I wrote. “Your gift, however small, could save a life! Please donate to Mercy Corps to help Haitians in need!”

I set a goal to raise $500 in seven days. We blew past that goal in just one day! It was incredible to track the progress on my page. Mercy Corps even sent me an email every time a donation came in so I would know who to thank. People I hadn’t talked to in months — gave! People I never expected to — gave! People I’d never even met — gave (apparently my link on Facebook spread further than I knew). Many of those who donated also wrote notes of support on my page. I was so touched, I was speechless.

In just two weeks, my friends and family helped me raise nearly $4,000! In those same two weeks, everyday Americans across the country raised $528 million. Looking back, I am struck by the force and speed of modern-day technology and the power of selfless giving. My $50 couldn’t undo what happened in Haiti — but millions of small donations like mine collectively made a difference in the lives of so many Haitians.

I see all this generosity as a beacon of hope on the edge of a disaster, helping groups like Mercy Corps light the way for others when their worlds go dark. Alone, we are but flickers in the wind; but together, we can blaze a trail toward hope.

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