Student Raises funds, travels to Haiti with baby food formula
Kattey Ortiz
Equinox Staff
In this economy, it is almost too easy to gripe about income (or lack thereof), gas prices and the government. But one Keene State College student realized first hand just how lucky we are to have most of the things we do.
Senior Michael Manfred is from Westerly, R.I. He played for the KSC Soccer team until his sophomore year when he made the choice to focus on academics.
This lifestyle change not only allowed him to excel in school, but he was able to take a long-awaited trip of a lifetime.
This past winter break, Manfred joined his older sister, Julie Manfred, on a volunteer trip to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
With them, they brought over $3,000 worth of baby formula to donate to an orphanage called His Home for Children.
But this is not his first time doing such a charitable act.
Manfred first flew to Haiti during spring break of last year with his sister Julie.
“I’ve been wanting to go for so long, but I was never able to because soccer took up a lot of my time,” Manfred said. “When I finally went, I knew I was going back there at some point. It changed my life.”
Manfred had been wanting to go for so long because of Julie, he said. In 2006, she started the process for adoption and chose to adopt from Haiti. She went to the orphanage for the first time in April of 2007 to meet with the two children she would adopt.
That is how she became familiar with His Home for Children.
“The first time that I was there,” Julie said, “a mom came to the front gate of the orphanage begging them to take her baby. She was so unhealthy and didn’t have enough nutrients so she wasn’t producing any milk for the baby. They had to turn her away because they have a waiting list of, like, 70 children to get in.”
At that point, she knew her adoption was going to take several years. So she decided in the meantime to do whatever she could to help the organization.
She said, “They told me baby formula would be a big help because then if they have enough formula, they wouldn’t have to turn babies away. So that’s kind of how it started.”
Since then, Julie has been going about four times a year bringing donations of baby formula.
There are more factors than baby formula that come into play when accepting children into the orphanage.
But the orphanage went from housing 75 children in 2007 to 140 children today because of the help from Manfred and his sister.
According to Mike, they were able to bring 12 bins full of formula weighing 50 pounds each. Each bin contained 13 cans, which he said cost around $20 apiece. In Haiti, each can costs about four times as much as it does in the United States.
“The majority of the donations we bring cost around $3,600 altogether,” Manfred said.
“We try to bring as many people as we can because the more people we bring, the more formula we are able to donate.”
The Manfreds stressed that the donations they receive are strictly for purchasing the formula, and they pay for their flights out of pocket.
In fact, Mike got his ticket booked as a Christmas present from his parents.
“It’s all I wanted for Christmas, so I’m happy that I was able to have my parents help me out. I had to pay for my trip during spring break. But it was more than worth it,” he said.
His Home for Children is run by Hal and Chris Nungester, according to their website.
They are from the U.S. and retired to Haiti to run the orphanage, and have grown very close with Julie.
They, along with 33 full-time staff members, administer three homes with approximately 1
Contributed Photo
Mike Manfred spent this past winter break with his sister, Julie Manfred, working in an orphanage in Port-au-Prince Haiti.
40 kids with an age range from birth to 16 years old.
While some of the children are orphans, many have been abandoned to the home by parents who are unable to provide for them due to extreme poverty.
Most of the children come with medical conditions resulting from years of malnutrition, but improve quickly with three nutritious meals a day, vitamins, necessary medicines, and purified drinking water, according to their website.
Mike noted the orphanage spends about $3,000 every Friday on groceries, including noodles, rice, pasta, toiletries, and the basics. “But the meals are incredible,” he said. “They have chicken with rice and beans for dinner. It’s very delicious.”
The children are spread out across three houses: the baby/toddler house, the girls’ house with an emergency room, and the boys’ house.
When Mike visits, he stays in the baby/toddler house.
“They wake me up by jumping on top of me and laughing. It’s my favorite place to wake up in the world.” Among the donations of formula on his most recent trip, Mike distributed soccer balls and all of his old hats and bandanas to the boys, which he said they loved.
Servicing the orphans of His Home for Children has impacted the Manfred family tremendously.
Julie said, “My aunt is 60 years old and she’s never had children. I brought her down to the orphanage and she ended up adopting two teenagers. As a family I think this has brought us closer because of the age difference with Mike and I. I’m 35 and he’s 21. So it’s given us something that we’re able to spend time together and grow closer while we work on it together.”
“I highly recommend traveling,” Mike said.
“You get so much more back than you give.” He admitted that the most fulfilling overall was gaining new experiences.
“I’m seeing new things, being able to help the kids and spending time with them. They’re better off at the orphanage, they’re very blessed. They don’t have much, but they’re the happiest kids I’ve ever seen.”
If you are interested in helping Mike and Julie Manfred in any way, you may email Julie at julie@hishomeforchildren.com or log onto http://www.hishomeforchildren.com and click on the milk carton icon at the bottom of the page that says “Milk Money.”
*The photo run in this story has been changed from the previous photo released in the print edition of The Equinox, Vol. 65, Issue 15.
The original photo featured Manfred’s cousin, not Mike Manfred. The photos included in this online edition are correct.
Kattey Ortiz can be contacted at
kortiz@keene-equinox.com
