This report comes from Sr. Pat Dillon, RJM, a Quixote Center partner in Gros Morne, Haiti.
In April 2024 we began a last-minute effort to salvage some of the delicious, nutritious mangoes which are the main cash crop of Gros Morne. It is from the mangoes which ripen from April to August that small-scale growers earn the money to buy food for their families, send their children to school and pay for health care. However, this was the second year in a row that the growers could not sell to the exporters, who are their main buyers, due to the extreme insecurity in Haiti and cancellation of their export contract with the USDA.
The Notre Dame de la Chandeleur parish Caritas asked the Quixote Center, which was working on having the export contract renewed, to find funds to buy the local mangoes and donate them for school children. The amazing response to Quixote fund raising made it possible to buy and distribute just under 20,000 dozen (230,000 mangos). Everyone involved played an important role, and we send a huge thank you from our parish and from the growers, truck drivers, and happy eaters. Note: local truck drivers have been severely impacted because gangs have blocked the national road system.
Because the time was so short, the parish used the mango sale system that was in place for exporting. We used the donated exporter’s local facility for collecting, washing and sending off the mangoes. Then the Gonaives affiliate of the Haitian Religious Conference oversaw the distribution with the pickup point principally at the Viatorian’s school, CIC.
The “mango save” coordinator sent out buyers to the already-established collection points to buy and pick up the mangos from growers who were notified via the export system. Local drivers navigated the rutted, mountains roads and exercised extra care because we were not able to obtain the usual mango crates which we had hoped for. At the facility the mangoes were washed, counted and prepared for transport to the neighboring city, Gonaives, or to Gros Morne schools /parishes especially those in dry areas.
In Gonaives the Viatorians received many of the mangoes at their school and coordinated with other schools for distribution. Direct deliveries went to one hard-to-reach school and Mother Theresa of Calcutta’s Sisters’ clinic and home for the elderly and four other schools. It would be hard to say who received the mangoes with greater joy and appreciation! In Gros Morne mangoes were delivered direct to the eight schools. After the school year ended, the schools / parishes happily continued to distribution the mangoes.
The growers received $ 25,340.19 for 19,965 dozen mangoes, the truck drivers received $13,384.62, and the coordinator, dispatchers (who traveled to Gonaives), $1,885 and accountant $300. The donations to the Quixote Center covered the payments to the mango growers and facility workers /truck drivers. The Religious of Jesus and Mary covered the other $2,185.
Many of the gratitude testimonies we received highlighted similar points:
The fathers who coordinated the Gonaives distribution wrote: Thank you everyone in the name of all the schools which received mangoes. The children were very, very happy. We were happy to see how much the children enjoyed the mangoes. They thank all the sisters, brother and priests in Gonaives who came with sacks and buckets to pick up the mangoes and give them out to the children at the various schools.
Many photos were circulated of children holding and eating the mangoes. The school director in Bigue (Gros Morne) and the sisters at the elderly residence in Gonaives told us that they made a delicious bouyon (stew) with the mangoes. There are city children who would not have eaten a mango this season if not for the donated mangoes. The landscape in Bigue reminds one of landscape in the first Star Wars movie because rain falls so infrequently.
Transport owners/truck drivers have almost been put out of business by the bandits controlling the highways. Tolls must be paid which raise the price owners/drivers have to ask customers. These drivers were grateful for the income they received and delighted to be able to transport the mangoes from the growers to the children.
The growers were able to pay school fees so their children could take their exams and get their reports card. Some who had started to cut down their mango trees to sell the wood decided to save their trees.
Only God knows how many mango trees were not cut down because the growers found some hope and income from the generosity of those donors who answered the appeal of the Quixote Center. Thank you!