Rebates for Haiti?

Here's a letter to the editor that I submitted to the Asheville Citizen-Times last week. I was told it will run in the near future, but there we loads of letters lined up before mine. Since I'm inpatient and can't wait to share it, here it is.

Dear Editor,

I want to give my tax rebate to Haiti, not Wal-Mart. Two articles were side by side in today’s paper (Jan. 29, 2008), but worlds apart. “Haiti’s poor eat dirt as food prices rise” described families eating cookies made of clay, salt, and shortening because they cannot afford food, while “House OKs tax rebates” outlined the stimulus package passed by the House.

Frankly, I don’t want the money. Will it help me pay some bills? Yes, but just in the short term. After reading about a mother feeding her child dirt to fill his belly, I guarantee that I will not go shopping with this money.

I am going to search for a way to get it as close as possible to families living in Cite Soleil, Haiti. I know sending money is a short-term fix to Haiti’s problem; the roots of poverty in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest county are deep and complicated. But faced with the comparison side by side, I don’t feel right doing anything else.

I encourage others to consider donating their rebate to an aid organization in Haiti or a domestic charity. Maybe we can turn this in to a grassroots campaign to stimulate social justice, not spending.

Sincerely,
Shelley Booth
Asheville, NC

And as a p.s. -- I'd love to link the articles from the Citizen-Times, but their website is atrocious for finding archives (even from last week). So here's the Haiti story from MSNBC.

It also got me digging for more information. Check out Partners in Health, started by Dr. Paul Farmer and his work as a doctor and anthropologist in Haiti. I also went to NPR to learn more about his biography, Mountains beyond Mountains, and his work.

Let me know if this speaks to you at all. Do these rebates make sense? Will you consider donating some of your check to charity?