Undercover to Feed Haiti’s Hungry

They carry out their mission with only the light from a few headlamps in
the predawn darkness. Jokes and laughter have ceased, replaced with a
sense of urgency to get in and get out quickly, seen by as few as
possible.

With an estimated 1.3 million people now homeless in Port-Au-Prince,
edible food and clean water are precious commodities making food
distribution a potentially dangerous venture. Nonetheless AIM has committed
to this undertaking.

Throughout the past week, teams have worked to prepare food bags to help
alleviate some of the widespread hunger in the communities they work
within. Each meal costs approximately one US dollar to provide and
evenings have been filled with bagging enough rice and beans to
distribute 3,000 meals to needy families.

After the bags are filled, team members create an assembly line and load
them into the back of the dust covered 15 passenger van. With the AIM
car magnets removed and the food safely loaded they wait.

Small groups of five to six, including a translator, wake long before
sunrise to deliver the food to designated drop off points. Supplies are
left with pastors whom we have created relationships with and trust to
distribute the meals to those families who are in need.

This is a strategy that has been implemented for a couple of reasons.
First it helps ensure the safety of those working to drop off the food,
keeping participants from being overrun. With such desperation one can
quickly become surrounded and in danger. Secondly with pastors in charge
of distribution those receiving the aid do not see it coming from a
certain organization or the wealthy foreigners instead it is seen as the
local church helping meet the needs of the community. These pastors
know best the needs of their communities and AIM is working with them to
help meet these community essentials.

Below is a short clip from Wednesday morning’s drop off…