Spotlight on: Real Hope for Haiti

A girl in a red coat changed Jessica Richardson's life.

In April 2011, Jessica joined a group of other women on a mission trip to Haiti. "We went down there for a maternity clinic, but one day we went to Real Hope for Haiti," she says.

Real Hope for Haiti is a not-for-profit organization in Cazale, Haiti, founded by Davis Zachary 18 years ago. Today, the mission has three parts: a medical clinic, rescue center and cholera center.

Zachary's daughter, Lori Moise, along with her husband Charles, oversees the medical clinic and cholera center. Her sister and brother-in-law, Enoch and Licia Betor, are in charge of the rescue center. According to Real Hope for Haiti's website, the rescue center takes in 70 to 80 children at a time and nurses them back to health.

"It's not an orphanage," Jessica says. "(The children) get healed. They stay until they get better."

Ten minutes after Jessica's group arrived, they were taken into a mission. That's when she saw the little girl in a red coat with severe burns. "God broke me," she says. "I changed at that moment."

She tears up as she talks about the day she spent at the mission. "The cholera house was tough to see," she says. "They spray the walls down with bleach. It's boarded up. We had to put our hands in gloves and feet in booties. We couldn't touch anything. And you see the children ... (cholera) is easily treated in the states."

That was her first mission trip.

"It was like nothing I've experienced before," she says. "I haven't been back -- yet. I had a hard time upon re-entry, but I do what I can here."

Doing what she can includes raising money, awareness and supplies to support Real Hope for Haiti's work. She's organized a 5k run that raised $6,000 and stuff-a-truck events to collect supplies for the centers. The rescue center is in constant need of supplies such as diapers, baby wipes, baby powder and formula. "Formula is huge," she says.

Real Hope for Haiti recently completed work on the new cholera center. "We raised $25,000 for it," Jessica says.

Jessica has also spread the word about Real Hope for Haiti's mission to others in Southeast Missouri.

"We've had many doctors and nurses from Cape go (to Haiti)," she says. "Both hospitals have given tremendous amounts of supplies."

Jessica says there likely will be another stuff-a-truck event, but that monetary donations are always welcome -- and useful.

"They're all God-fearing Christian people," she says of the mission's staff. "They do it for nothing, but because God called them."

HOW TO HELP

To donate and learn more about Real Hope for Haiti, visit realhopeforhaiti.org. Check semoevents.com and the Flourish Facebook page for details on future fundraising events.