Thoughts go out to the people of Haiti, who recently experienced a devastating earthquake. Just this past December, Alumna Dr. Vicki Fitts led students in a heart-felt effort to make aprons for the women of Haiti.

Fitts recently read Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World, a book by Tracy Kidder about the extreme poverty and lack of health care in Haiti, at the suggestion of a second year master’s student, Blake Skidmore. She then read On The Day Everyone Ate: One Women’s Story of Hope and Possibility in Haiti, by Margaret Trost, of a woman who runs a non-profit food program in Haiti that feeds 800 children five days a week. While looking at the author’s website, Fitts discovered a request for aprons.

When she shared this information with her ethnicity and policy course students during fall quarter, these future social workers decided they wanted to help and gathered at Stillman Hall the week after finals to make the aprons. While the spring delivery of the 30 aprons has been postponed as the country attempts to recover, the goodwill felt for the people there can be felt through every apron made.

Social work students learn how to layout a pattern, cut, press, and sew an apron.

 

 

If you would like to support the recovery and relief effort in Haiti, we suggest contacting the Red Cross at 1-800-redcross or visit the White House web site at www.whitehouse.gov