Today is our one month anniversary. Thanks everyone for having made our first month a very positive experience. I look very much forward at seeing everyone at our meeting tomorrow where we will be going over the plan for next month. Hope to see you all there.

Stephen Harper has concluded his visit to Haiti after spending some time with various Canadian aid workers and taking some time to highlight how the government’s spending on aircrafts have proven very helpful delivering aid to Haiti. While the Prime Minister did not hold a conference to mention any future projects regarding Haiti, the Globe and Mail article highlights various efforts Canadians are already involved in, including medical care, which are very promising.
According to experts interviewed by Reuters, rebuilding Haiti is going to be one of the most-if not the most- costly investment in rebuilding efforts after a natural disaster in our time. The good news is, investment is being made to improve infrastructure and to build structures that are more resistant to hurricanes and earthquakes. In view of such estimates, many people lose faith and wonder weather or not rebuilding Haiti is going to be even possible. I think it falls on us to do our share in convincing everyone to cast away their doubts.

Elliot is feeling great about our outlook for next month after watching a little hockey today. An 8-0 opening game is quite inspiring. With the spirit of Olympic Games to thrive on, I look forward to TW4H beating this score –or rather its equivalent in helping Haiti- during the coming weeks. Let’s pull together and convince everyone that it is POSSIBLE.

Hello folks,

Hope you all had a great long weekend and are looking forward to our second volunteer meeting coming up this Wednesday- which ‘incidentally’ falls just after day 30. (I think that certainly calls for a little celebration, don’t you? ) As you probably know, we will be talking about the art auction and hopefully divide up all the tasks that need to be done to ensure the event’s success.

We have our very first volunteer outside of Toronto. Not only Nate has offered to help us offering his expert services in writing and communication, he also brings us a more insider perspective on Haiti-having lived in the country for few months. It is great to have you with us Nate.

I like to invite you guys to check out the new positing on our testimonial section. I am sure you will feel very proud of our volunteers after reading the reviews. I also like to thank the clients for taking the time to provide us with their feedback.

The Globe and Mail printed pictures of trucks working to clean and restore Haiti’s streets. A city of 50 000 people, and only two trucks to clean the city; even the thought of the crew getting up to get on with the seemingly hopeless task reveals the spirit driving Haiti’s rebuilding efforts. Hopelessness certainly has no place this equation.

Just as we finish family day here in Toronto, I cannot help but think of the families in Haiti who have so recently lost so much. I just like to end by saying our thoughts are certainly with them today more than ever before.

A happy Valentine’s Day to everyone, and happy Year of the Tiger as well. If you were outside today enjoying the relatively mild winter weather, you were probably inundated with the goodwill and warm feelings of these two events. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to wish everyone love and happiness.

TW4H had an unofficial work day – Elliot’s scouted out a location for our next volunteers’ meeting:

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 6:00pm, Art Square Gallery Cafe at 334 Dundas St West (opposite the AGO)

All volunteers are welcome to come for a coffee, maybe a crepe, and a brainstorming session!

As we head into the second month after the earthquake, here’s something to ponder. A recent article at BBC News highlighted the differences between several large earthquake disasters in the last few years: China in 2008, Italy in 2009, Haiti in 2010. The article noted that the human devastation in Haiti is greater than the others. As in any disaster, there are the “technical elements” (the magnitude of the earthquake, how close it is to the earth’s surface, the density of the population in the area) and the “social elements” (the infrastructure, poverty).  We can’t do much about the technical elements, but let’s focus our thoughts this week on what TW4H can do to improve the social elements.

Here’s a recap of what’s happened in the last week on the TW4H front:

• Elliot worked for Haiti today by taking pictures for our service providers Yolanda and Mike! Look for their bios here.

• We’re planning an auction event for artwork and services donated by our volunteers and local artists. We’re discussing time, date, and venue, and we’re asking for all hands on deck for ideas and suggestions.

• Autoshare’s e-newsletter did a feature on TW4H, and we’re very glad to connect with that community. It’s also inspired us to look into other e-newsletter publications that might be interested in carrying a blurb about us. Please let us know if you write for/publish/receive any e-newsletters that we could contact.

• Our second volunteer meeting will be sometime in the next Wednesday, so get ready for another brainstorming session!

• We’d also like to welcome our new volunteer Juliana! Thanks, Juliana, for helping us promote TW4H.

Yesterday, ceremonies were held in Haiti to mark one-month’s passing since the January 12 earthquake. How quickly life can change in such a short time. Let’s think of ways we can help those who need the most, and have the least. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Many of you (we dare say, ALL of you) watched the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games tonight. Wasn’t it amazing to watch dreams come true? Something that started as a dream, far from reality, was unfolding right before our very own eyes – athletes dreaming of competing at the world stage and community members dreaming of hosting the Olympic games at home. Then, an incredible amount of hard work and sweat, a dash of creativity, and human spirit. This night simply brought everyone together. It really resonates with TW4H. We also began as an idea and a dream. We’re working hard to get one step closer to our dream and we will continue to do our best.

Another idea we recently had was organizing an art auction, as we have shared with you here for the last few days. The idea is blooming by the minute, and the auction is very likely to take place in the first weekend of March. Well, yes, the planning has officially begun! After lots of hard work and with a dash of creativity, we will be able to put together a great event. Hope to see all of you there! Bring your friends too. Let’s make this an event that will remembered and help us reach our goal.

Wish you a great and inspiring weekend. A big shout-out to our friends in Vancouver!

I’d better make this a quick one folks; otherwise it will become Day 25 bordering on Day 26. We have had very positive feedback concerning the art auction proposal as well as an increasing number of very enthusiastic volunteers willing to help make this event a great success. Katherine and Elliot have already started working hard on this auction and we have people willing to help us out with marketing. And someone is working on find us a band. Very exciting .

Elliot is also working on organizing our second volunteer meetings next week so that we can all share ideas and plan for the big event. It will be amazing to meet everyone we saw last time, as well as everyone who could not make it, in addition to our new volunteers who joined us after our first meeting! The get-together will probably be on Wednesday or Thursday, so mark your agendas and stay tuned for time and location confirmation.

There is also some very exciting news regarding aids being shipped to Haiti (Thank you Rox for sending the story). Canada is to send 1200 units of Earthquake-resistant and Hurricane-resistant shelters to Haiti. These shelters are expected to be used as daycare centres and schools and are a more durable and therefore economic alternative to tents.

And lastly, we have two new services posted on our services page. Rick Shea’s photography bio includes a link to samples of his work. We also have Jana’s web design and web application service bio up and running now. You may notice we need to scroll down more and more to see all the amazing services our volunteers are now offering.

Autoshare e-newsletter is live and as promised, they have featured us in their issue. I also noticed that they have been reaching out to their own members as well and raising funds and are donating $2000 to Haiti this week. It’s great to be featured with an organization that shares our commitment to helping Haiti.

E-newsletters are very popular and I like to take a quick second to echo Katherine’s request for an extension on our reaching out to this outlet. If you are a member in an organization with an electronic publishing, it is definitely worth a shot to see if they would be willing to feature us in their upcoming issue. If you don’t have the time to contact them directly, why don’t you give us a heads up by email and maybe we can get in touch with them.

Lets give a warm welcome to Yuki and Jana, our newest service providers. Jana is joining forces with us by bringing us her expertise in website design, graphic design, as well as web application design and consultations while Yuki has offered her tutoring services in addition to administrative services working with Microsoft and data organizing. Great to have you on board Yuki and Jana.

And now to raise all of our spirits a little bit to re-energize us for the next few days, which I trust will prove to be busy ones, I have a found a video on YouTube that I like to share with you. Have a look at how fundraising efforts in Thailand are setting some giant footsteps for everyone else to follow. Enjoy and have a great night everyone.

Three days from now, it will be exactly one month since the day Haiti was hit with the devastating earthquake. Yet the number of survivors increases. Yesterday, a survivor was pulled out of the rubble and is under care at the University of Miami field hospital.

It just goes to tell us I guess, that what we take so simply for granted as possible and impossible needs some re-questioning. In a symbolic way, the story of this survival can push aside doubts some may entertain as to what is possible in terms of helping Haiti. There is affirmation of faith in knowing this; which I think in turn helps us stand firm with what we have set us to achieve and contribute. And if you feel you may need a little more reassurance, here are just a couple of amazing things that have happened so far that can challenge your doubts:

• One little boy reportedly raised over $160 000 for UNICEF Haiti Earthquake Children’s Appeal

• Canadians have over contributed $113 million dollars to Haiti (the figure being till yesterday, I trust I can safely say “over” )

Now for a little bit on our news front:

Elliot has been in touch with Autoshare Marketing and they have agreed to feature us in their e-newsletter which will be distributed to their clients this week.

Katherine has created an ad template we can use to reach out to more people by letting more people know about what our service providers can offer them.

And last but definitely not least, Elliot and Katherine met with Nuwan Foneska and have come up with an ambitious plan for an art auction day where we can auction off not only the paintings Nuwan has donated to us, but other pieces that he and his art community are willing to donate to us. Tentatively, we are talking of setting this up for early in March. More details will be sent out later tonight, but please let us know your thoughts and suggestions for venues, marketing and other related aspects of this event.

And with that, I wish you all a great night.

P.S. Welcome on board, our two new volunteers: Jana and Yuki.

It’s Superbowl Sunday, and what a game it was. Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. It’s taking a long time to rebuild the city to what it once was, and there’s been a lot of hardship and hard work involved. But five years later, the city’s football team has triumphed, entering and winning its first Superbowl in history. This serves as inspiration and encouragement for us in helping to rebuild Haiti – it might take a while, but every little bit counts.

It’s looking to be a Super week ahead at TW4H as well. Elliot has been in touch with the organizers for this Tuesday’s “Eat, Drink and Give” event at Roy Thomson Hall in support of Doctors Without Borders: http://eatdrinkandgive.com/ or contact: @spotlightcity. TW4H is hoping to participate in the auction via offering the artwork by our talented volunteer/artist Nuwan. We’re also looking to put together some packaged business offerings for auction, such as:

• Marketing + writing
• Style makeover + photography
• Babysitting + cooking

If you have any suggestions for multiple service combinations that could be auctioned, please let us know!

Also in the works – we’ve been thinking about all the good work our volunteers are doing and we’d like to show our appreciation through a Thank You event later on in the month for all TW4H volunteers and clients. Better yet, we’ve been talking to a sushi chef who is happy to volunteer time and effort to prepare some sushi dishes at the Thank You event. We’ll keep you posted.

It’s been a big week at Toronto Works For Haiti. First of all, we got an attractive and informative new design for our website. Then, thanks to the Uncles’ hard work with the facelift, we made new groups of friends. We’ve got in touch with other groups who are raising money for Haiti, like HaiHaiTO; One Love for Haiti; and Eat, Drink, and Give. Our Facebook page has added a bunch of new friends and potential volunteers and we’re just getting started on getting our Facebook connections involved. We welcomed new volunteers, Karen, Chris, and Nuwan, who have been busy this week. Thanks for the video shout-out from Chris about TW4H, and for the generous donation of artwork from Fonsekaa Nuwan, which you can check out on “Service Offering” page. We also have bilingual content on “About Us” page thanks to Kat’s translation. Let’s not forget the highlight of the past week: our first Meet-and-Greet event, here are our pictures!

It’s been a big week for Haiti as well. The G7 nations have agreed to cancel Haiti’s debts in the wake of the earthquake, which will be of some help.

However, it’s important to note that the exact amount owed bilaterally to G7 countries is relatively small in comparison to Haiti’s debt owed to other countries and international organizations like the IMF and World Bank. Haiti’s total debt owed is estimated at close to $2 billion. Will the write-off of debts help Haiti in lifting itself out from being one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere? How will this affect the problems of corruption in Haiti? This isn’t the full solution, but it will hopefully be a step forward.

We would like to extend our congratulations to Chantal Labonte from Sudbury, Ontario. She has collected empty bottles and cans to raise funds for Haiti and has raised $250 so far. Good job Chantal!