After sponsoring their second Christmas party for Haitians, Van Mater family looks to 2019 trip
Washington Township’s Jim Van Mater was first asked to go to Haiti in 2012. Little did he know the trip would be the spark necessary to start a fire for his family’s desire to provide assistance to Haiti.
This past December, the Van Mater family sponsored a Christmas party at the de L’Ecole Miste La Redemption School in Cite Soleil.
“This is the poorest section on Port Au Prince,” Van Mater said. “Most people living in this section survive on less than one dollar a day.”
They provide the Haitians with a lunch, a Christmas present and a special gift for 360 children, according to Van Mater.
“Last year, every child received a Bible. This year, we had crosses made in Haiti for every child,” he said. Van Mater liked giving crosses because it gave a few people jobs.
In June of last year, the Van Mater family not only traveled to Haiti, they fundraised to build an addition to the Greater Works Home for Girls over the course of 2018. In May, his daughter KC said the home was transitioning from one director to another, the fundraising was to build an addition for the director to allow him to live on the premises.
“This provided living quarters for the director and his family,” Van Mater said. “With the director now living on the premises, it provides a more stable and family-like atmosphere for the girls.”
The Van Mater family will make another trip to Haiti in July with intentions to hold a vacation Bible school for 200 children.
“We will feed them lunch every day and send them home with enough food to feed a family of four for a week,” Van Mater said. “We will be bringing medical supplies that we give to our partners, and they take them all over Haiti to be handed out to anyone in need.”
The food will be purchased in Haiti in an effort to boost the economy.
The July trip will be Van Mater’s ninth. He said that through fundraising and hard work from their partners in Haiti, he provided more than 40,000 meals for Haitians. He spoke about the home he does most work with.
“Most of the work we do is at the Greater Works Home for Girls in Port Au Prince,” he said. “There are 39 girls living there. Most have no parents, but some have been given up by their parents because they feel the girls are better off at the home instead of with the parents.”
At the home, the girls are provided an education, a place to sleep and are fed daily.
“These may seem like small things to us, but to Haitians they are a luxury,” he said.
The family has volunteered across the United States but to Van Mater the most satisfying and rewarding feeling comes from that little country roughly 1,400 miles southeast of Washington Township.
“In the United States, if you want help, there are programs that provide that. In Haiti there are very few programs to help the poor,” he said.
For those who want to get involved with the Van Mater family and their mission to help Haitians, contact the St. John’s United Methodist Church on Ganttown Road in Turnersville at (856) 227–6567.
