The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield announced parishioners donated $592,000 for relief.
Dr. Paul Gerstein, emergency department physician at Baystate Mary Lane Hospital in Ware, was one of the many area residents who volunteered to provide health care to victims of the January earthquake in HaitiWhen death totals topped 250,000 and the national news showed people suffering in Haiti, Western Massachusetts residents took out their checkbooks and credit cards.
In six months, they donated more than $1.15 million to help victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti. Schools held fund-raisers, many gave at local supermarkets and donated through text message.
Officials for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield announced Friday parishioners donated a collective $592,000 to Haiti. Most of the total went to Catholic Relief Services, but some congregations sent about $75,000 to other organizations, spokesman Mark E. Dupont said.
“It was our largest one-time collection,” Dupont said. “I think for the Catholic community and the entire community, the images moved people as well as the fact that the country is already poor.”
The 2005 Hurricane Katrina came in at a close second with churches donating $585,000, he said.
The tragedy may have resonated with Catholics because some parishes had been involved with helping Haiti previously, Dupont said.
The Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross recently received a report showing $408,477 was donated by Western Massachusetts residents. Not included was money given through a program that let people donate $10 through text message, Paige N. Thayer, deputy director of chapter support, said.
In total $468 million was raised nationally by the organization, she said.
“This is the biggest thing I’ve seen here,” Thayer said.
MassMutual Financial Group in Springfield donated more than $200,000. The company first gave $100,000 and then matched any employee contribution, spokeswoman Laura B. Demars said.
About half that money was given to the Red Cross and the other half was given to the Haiti chapter of Habitat for Humanity, she said.
Big Y donated $108,277 to the Red Cross from change customers dropped into store canisters. Big Y Chief Executive Officer Donald H. D’Amour and his wife, Michele, educational partnership administrator, donated another $10,000 to Hope for Haiti.
The tally of donations from Western Massachusetts is likely higher than the $1.15 million because residents donated to other organizations and gave anonymously.
“Everyone has been extremely generous. We raised a lot of money,” said Peter J. Kelly, a Wilbraham eye surgeon and president of the CRUDEM Foundation of Ludlow, which helps support the Sacred Heart Hospital in Milot, Haiti.
The hospital, which was undamaged in the earthquake, cared for hundreds of people who traveled 90 miles from the capital city of Port-au-Prince to find treatment.
It made national news and donations poured in from across the world as well as from Western Massachusetts.
“We raised more than $1 million and our costs were about $950,000,” Kelly said.
The foundation is still caring for about 150 patients, about half of whom are earthquake victims. It has also set up a prosthetic laboratory at the hospital and has fit 15 people with new limbs and has about 70 more waiting, Kelly said.
Because so many hospitals in Haiti have been destroyed, the organization started a campaign to raise money to build an addition to double the size of its 65-bed hospital. Now many patients are being cared for in tents, Kelly said.
It wasn’t just financial generosity that amazed Kelly. More than 1,500 doctors, nurses and physical therapists flew to Milot at their own expense to volunteer at the hospital. Many were from Western Massachusetts.
Kelly was one of those volunteers, as was retired orthopedic surgeon Mark H. Pohlman, of Longmeadow.
Pohlman was an organizer the First Church of Christ in Longmeadow which partnered with the CONASPEH School in Port-au-Prince and provided scholarships for children. The school was destroyed in the earthquake, killing many nursing students.
The First Church of Christ raised $30,000 for overall relief for Haiti.
It recently started a fund drive to raise money for scholarships for children who are attending the re-opened school. It is now teaching about 600 kindergarten through 12th-graders in tents until rebuilding can get under way. It will reopen its seminary and nursing program soon, he said.