Haiti To Receive Food Aid From Florida

                                                                                                                                                                                                Mayor Major Thomas Masters [Riviera Beach, Palm Beach County] returned from Haiti late Tuesday, armed with a challenge: Collect enough flour, rice and cooking oil to return to the impoverished country in 30 days.

Masters along with two local Haitian  ministers were among a 20-person delegation, headed by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, that spent three days in Haiti.   The group met with top government officials and toured the country in an effort to assess Haiti’s food crisis.

“Poverty and devastation like I’ve never seen before,” said Masters, also a bishop and pastor of New Macedonia Baptist Church in Riviera Beach. “People are literally starving to death.”

The trip moved Masters to lead a local campaign to collect food and water to be shipped Haiti.

At a news conference after his trip, Jackson called the food crisis a “horror of hunger.” He asked for the Bush administration to intervene by forgiving Haiti’s debt, stabilize food prices and provide financial assistance to Haitian farmers.

Haiti needs rice, cereal, bottled water, dry beans, flour, cooking oil and powered milk. The medical supplies like Band-aids, hydrogen peroxide and anti-bacterial ointment are required also.

Mayor Masters is also enlisting the help of other Mayors to provide drop-off locations throughout their cities.

Pablo Garcia, a 19-year Palm Beach Community College student decided to get involved. The Lake Worth teen dropped off 40 pounds of rice and two gallons of cooking oil at city hall to aid in Masters’ campaign.

“When I was younger, my mom and I were living on the streets. I know what it’s like,” said Garcia, who is studying to be a software programmer. “I just wanted to give back.

Source – Palm Beach Post