Tulsa Organizations Gathering Aid For Haiti

By Craig Day, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- More help from Oklahoma will soon be on its way to Haiti.

Tulsa based Kids Against Hunger is mixing, sacking and boxing up hope for people in Haiti.

Hope in the form of dehydrated vegetables, rice and other ingredients combined into a nutrient rich recipe to feed the hungry.

The food packets, enough for 1.4 million meals, will be sent next week on a U.S. Navy ship.

"They would be dying, dying for lack of food and lack of water and lack of medical attention," said Marshall Horn, Kids Against Hunger.

Outside Guts Church at 9120 East Broken Arrow Expressway, a trailer is set up for people to drop off food, water, clothing and hand tools for Haiti.

"The thing to realize is it's so easy to provide hope," said Tom Moneypenny, Team Relief Director.

"Seeing it on the news, and these are things that we can buy every day, and they don't have anything right now. They don't have access to what we can give away," said Debbie Dunnick, Broken Arrow Resident.

The church is still making shipping arrangements.

While humanitarian groups in Oklahoma are working out those logistics of getting the donated supplies to people in need in Haiti, many Oklahomans who are stuck in the devastated country right now are scrambling to figure out how they are going to get home, including Liberty Henegar of Claremore, who is in Haiti on a mission trip.

"Out of all of the things, I had expected out of Haiti, I knew there could be shooting, kidnappings; the last thing I expected was an earthquake," said Liberty Henegar, Claremore Resident.

The News On 6 talked with Liberty by phone while she was at the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

"There are people laying in streets in places, there was a little boy crushed under a wall. They've opened the cemeteries and are just putting people in to, trying to keep disease down," said Liberty Henegar.

While she's making her way home, Liberty is thankful she's ok and that supplies will soon make their way to people in desperate need.

Guts church is taking donations from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. each day and hopes to fill the trailer by Sunday.

They are just off the Broken Arrow Expressway; the best way to get there is by taking the Eastbound Mingo exit.

Church officials say they are looking for non-perishable food items, water and clothing.

1/15/2010 Related Story: Tulsa Groups Helping With Haiti Earthquake Disaster