by admin | January 24th, 2010
Mark Dyer stands in a warehouse at Miami International Airport, surrounded by big plastic containers stacked on wooden pallets, waiting to be loaded for Haiti.
Inside each container, called a ShelterBox, is enough gear to shelter and hydrate 10 disaster victims for six months.
Dyer is a small-business consultant from the Chicago area. His volunteer job is get 1,500 ShelterBox units from Miami to Haiti.
“We have to help,”he said. “These people were living their lives, and something happened that they had no control over.”
ShelterBox, an international disaster relief charity, started in 2000 as a Rotary Club project in the United Kingdom.
The actual box is a green weatherproof tub about two feet tall, three feet across and weighs 110 pounds — about the size of a small trunk.
It generally takes about $1,000 to build a ShelterBox, fill it and ship it to a disaster zone.
The contents are customized for each disaster. For Haiti: A 10-person sleeping tent, water purification tablets; insulated sleeping bags, collapsible 2.1-gallon water carriers; collapsible trenching shovel, rope, hatchet, jack-knife, screwdriver, hammer, hoe-head; multi-fuel stove; ponchos, mosquito-resistant nets, eating utensils, cups, plates, even a children’s activity book.
Authorities give priority to the most immediate needs, Dyer said.
Water comes after rescue and medical supplies.
“And because we (have)water purification, that qualifies our boxes to get in.”
Visit info@shelterbox.org
- KENNY MALONE
Click here to subscribe
