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To Haiti with Love was an online auction of art, photography, papercrafts, clothing, and creative goods. All proceeds go direct to the St. Joseph's Family of homes for children in Haiti.

The auction opened at 8 AM EST on Monday, February 1, 2010.

The auction closed at midnight EST on Monday, February 8, 2010.

Canadians can donate to St. Joseph's anytime through the online donation page of its Canadian fundraising organization, Broken Wings.

Americans can donate through the online donation page for Hearts with Haiti, the U.S. organization. Either way, your support builds hope.

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Earthquake Devastates St. Joseph Home in Port au Prince

Broken Wings is the Canadian fundraising organization whose primary mission is to support the vision and ministry of the St. Joseph Family in Haiti, which includes the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in Port-au Prince, Wings of Hope in Fermathe, and Trinity House in Jacmel.

Orphans caring for orphans: a beautiful story

St. Joseph’s Home for Boys was Michael Geilenfeld’s dream that became a reality in 1985, bringing boys off the streets of Port-au-Prince to provide them with a Christian home and family.

When French missionaries announced they were leaving Haiti and needed to find care for the disabled children under their supervision, Michael took some of the older boys from St. Joseph's to choose a child to bring home and care for. But the boys surprised Michael when they chose to adopt all the children. Wings of Hope had become a thriving home for disabled children, recently rebuilt and expanded to include a day school for disabled community children and lovely guest facilities.

For more on the St. Joseph's family of homes for children, visit the Broken Wings website.

Endless thanks to our hosts at Squarespace, who not only make the most robust and most elegant blogging platform on the planet, but who are also as generous as they are hip.

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Where there is doubt, let me sow faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

~ Saint Francis of Assisi

the organizers

To Haiti with Love is a weeklong fundraising event curated and managed by visual artist René Joshi Sims of fruityfantastica and author Kate Inglis of sweet | salty.

René first heard of Wings of Hope via the Canada for Haiti telethon on January 22, 2010. The fragile and extraordinary children on screen reminded her of her son and the many children she knows in the special needs community. She has no money and a garage full of art and thought others might be in the same boat. "I emailed Kate, Kate emailed everyone else, and voilà. Here we all are, with so much to offer," she says.

René's zig-zaggy art journey: a three year crash course in love, painting, and D.I.Y. at Rosebud, Alberta; Yale University's Summer School of Art in Norfolk; four hothouse years at Alberta College of Art and Design; a year-long mentorship with Canadian painter Eleanor Bond, and another year working on Chautauqua Stars for a Northern City, a public commission for the E. A. Rawlinson Centre for the Arts. The journey came to a juddering halt when René's son was diagnosed with autism. She recently returned to the studio after a six year absence, and is working on a show about healing, loss, and love that glows just hot enough to see by. She lives with her family in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and blogs in happy obscurity at fruityfantastica.

Kate Inglis of sweet | salty lives on the edge of a meat-grinder sea on the far eastern coastline of Nova Scotia, where she was born. An author and photographer, Kate chases light as a founding contributor to Shutter Sisters. She is also the founder of a warm, embracing and entirely sensible community for bereaved parents called Glow in the Woods.

Kate's first novel, The Dread Crew: Pirates of the Backwoods, was published in November 2009. The second edition will be distributed throughout Canada and the USA in April 2010.

We are not unheard. I don't know how, on what plane, or in what capacity. I just know it. We are all accompanied. Mystery. Unexplained strangeness. Phosphorescents. We live among beings that glow electric, swirling and glittering in swell. How can there not be magic? How can we not be heard?

~ sweet | salty

To offer a contribution or ask a question, contact us at fruityfantastica (at) gmail (dot) com or sweetsaltykate (at) gmail (dot) com. Thank you all so much for your patience, encouragement, and unhesitating response during our little blitz of love, hope, and resources for Haiti.