Local teacher and farmer helps Haitians

Photo: Chelsea Rugg

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PARIS —   David Knightly, a Spanish teacher at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, has been trying to sell bracelets to his students and customers at his strawberry farm, Fairwinds Farm in Oxford, to raise money.

Half the proceeds go to families in Haiti whose  homes and possessions were destroyed in the January 2010 earthquake. They use the money for things like food, clothes, homes and education.

The other half of the proceeds go to a woman, an acquaintance of Knightly's wife, who is trying to adopt a Haitian child.

The Apparent Project, the program that makes the bracelets, provides jobs for Haitians by providing them with cereal boxes. The Haitians that are involved make beads out of the cereal boxes by rolling them on bamboo skewers, covering them in a waterproof sealant and stringing them.

The bracelets are sold with a short story of what the maker of the bracelets situation has been since the earthquake. Everyone they provide jobs for is in need of something.

One bracelet was made by a woman who is living in a 5-foot by 5-foot tent with her husband and their five children.

Another story is about a woman who lost her husband in the earthquake and is trying to buy land to build a house and pay for her daughter to go to school.

Many people are still struggling because of the earthquake. The Apparent Project provides a way to earn money, but the country is so poor, the poorest in the western hemisphere, that they are running out of cereal boxes to make bracelets with, so some people have been making an effort to find empty cereal boxes to send to them.

It was estimated that 3 million people were affected by the 2010 earthquake. Three hundred and sixteen thousand people died, 300,000 were injured and 1,000,000 became homeless, so the money being earned will go to rebuilding what the earthquake destroyed.

The Knightlys think it’s great that the bracelets will help people in Haiti get their lives in order again and help someone adopt a child who needs it, but they also thought this would be a good thing for their son to experience. They are trying to show him how good it is to give and what the things we have can do for people.

“We want him to see how fortunate we really are," said Knightly. "There are other people who don't have much.” The woman the Knightlys are helping adopt a child is someone they met through home-schooling their son.

“Adopting costs a lot,” Knightly says. “We're trying to do what we can to help out.” They've been not only selling the bracelets, but “dumpster diving” for cereal boxes at the local dump to send to Haiti.

The bracelets can be found online at www.apparentproject.org or at the Fairwinds Farm on Skeetfield Road in Oxford for $8. They are trying to sell 120 of them, and all the money goes to two very good causes. You can also help by donating any empty cereal boxes you come across.