LSF Works with Haitians

Coming to Tampa

Humanitarian Parolees with Medical Needs

By Thomas L. Weitzel

LSF Communications

30 January 2010

Lutheran Services Florida is continuing to respond to Haitian needs as more and more of the injured and ill from the Jan. 12 earthquake come into Tampa.

For the past two weeks, LSF staff and volunteers have provided an around the clock presence at Orlando International Sanford Airport receiving, processing and repatriating about 8,000 people, according to Samuel Sipes, President and CEO of Lutheran Services Florida.

This week, LSF in Tampa geared up to receive humanitarian parolees who are injured or ill.

"This has involved meeting arriving flights at the airport and coordinating with area hospitals for those who are injured and ill," said Sipes.  "For those healthy individuals that are accompanying them, we have been providing immediate cash assistance, clothing, transportation, housing and other services."

So far, that effort has included meeting with 37 patients in seven area hospitals as well as the 23 individuals who have accompanied them.

"These folks are getting off the plane with [only] the clothes on their back," said Sipes in a interview with Tampa Bay's Fox News Channel 13.  "Many of them haven’t eaten all day. They’re hungry, they’re thirsty, they’re tired. They have no money, they have nothing."

Sipes also noted that the state of mind of those arriving is pretty much "numb, and there's a reason for that.  That’s a response to a situation that you really can’t handle.”

The work that LSF is providing has included a significant number of volunteers.

"We have developed strong relationships with the Haitian community in Tampa, and they are volunteering by the dozens to provide translation services and to help make the humanitarian parolees feel at home," stated Sipes.  "We are also arranging for immigration lawyers to sit down with all of the HP's and review their legal status and address any pending legal issues."

Lutheran Services Florida has employed its significant experience in immigrant/refugee resettlement and in disaster response coordination without knowing where the funding for these efforts will come from.

"We have been in discussion with various government agencies, and we are hopeful that we will be reimbursed by them for our work from some source," Sipes wrote in a letter to LSF Board Members on Jan. 29.  "In the event that funding is not available from government sources, we have secured pledges of financial support from Lutheran Disaster Response, ELCA Disaster Response and LCMS World Relief and Human Care from the funds they have been raising for Haitian Relief.  We are also soliciting support from other faith-based organizations and donations from individuals."

LSF's committment and resolve to assist Haitians coming into Florida is firm, however, said Sipes.

"Regardless, we are responding to their needs now and will continue to work with them for as long as they need us and we are able."

Click here to view a video of the LSF's Haitian response in Tampa on Fox News Channel 13.

See also the following two articles showing national Lutheran support for LSF's work with Haitians:

• Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod: Lutheran Services Florida Provides Haiti Relief Stateside

• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: ELCA Gifts to Haiti Earthquake Response Exceed $2.7 Million

For a story on the work LSF did in Sanford over the past two weeks, click here.

 

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