Led by Berkeley staff member Ayesha Vickers-Brown and her advisory group, The Berkeley Institute has donated approximately $15,000 to the disadvantaged in Haiti through either the Red Cross or the Cornerstone Foundation from October 2009 to May 2010.

Mrs. Vickers-Brown reflected on her experiences in Haiti and the response of her students to the call for help.

With the first Haiti trip in October 2009, I was really touched by Elsie Lherisson's ministry, and I wanted to help out in some way.

I borrowed books from the children's library to learn more about Haiti and the culture, and shared this information with the students whom I teach. I had the idea of having a bake sale to raise money towards Elsie's feeding programme.

I contacted Elsie, and she informed me that it cost about $700 for each feeding day. I didn't have a set amount that I wanted to raise, but just set a goal to raise as much as we could.

I spoke at each school assembly (S1 to S4) and shared with the students information about Haiti and Elsie's ministry.

I told them that since we are blessed with so much, it would be great if we could raise money to help out the kids and families in Haiti.

I told students that if they wanted to help they could donate items to sell at a bake sale.

On the day of the bake sale, we were blessed with TONS of food. We made about $1,000 from that bake sale.

I had one more bake sale the following week with my advisory students baking the goods. We raised a further $450. In addition to the bake sales, I asked my family and friends for donations.

All together, about $3,700 was raised, and this money was distributed to Elsie and to Bonite Affriany in Jacmel.

After the earthquake struck on January 12, I had the idea of having another fund-raiser to benefit Angel Wings.

This fund-raiser was called '10Gs in 10 days'. I calculated that if every Berkeley student raised at least $20 in 10 days, we would be able to donate $10,000 to Angel Wings for medical supplies, doctors etc.

I took some students out into the community to request donations, and students were encouraged to ask their families. The final total was about $5,000. The Berkeley staff decided to have a pot luck for Haiti, which raised about $1,500, and this money was combined with the 10Gs money.

When I travelled during Easter, I felt led to take sanitary napkins and women's underwear, so asked staff at my school if they wanted to donate anything.

All together, 361 pairs of underwear and 720 sanitary napkins were donated.

Finally, when I travelled with the relief mission #2, I had some money left over from Easter, so I purchased 250 sight word reader books for the kids who wanted to learn English.

Debbie Mathis wanted to continue working with them after I left, and these books are great for learning basic sight words and phrases.

The money received through the bake sales/family donations was distributed through Cornerstone to Elsie and Bonite.

The money raised from the 10Gs fund-raiser was presented to Mary Samuels by Berkeley Students. The underwear, sanitary napkins, and books were taken directly to Haiti when I travelled there.

I didn't really know how to 'debrief' my first trip; however, after speaking with a few teachers I visited classrooms to share pictures and my experience. I think I visited about five different classrooms in addition to speaking with my own groups of students.

Other communication was in the form of e-mails (for example, sending pictures).

Recently, we had a special all-male assembly in which I briefly shared some pictures and what I discovered on the last trip (Mission Relief #2), and then Prinston Burrows shared his testimony with the boys.

They were thoroughly enthralled with his testimony and experiences.