SEQUIM — Tom Schaafsma of Sequim has departed on another mission of mercy with the ShelterBox USA team.
Sequim’s Citizen of the Year for 2009 left for Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Wednesday and will work there for two to three weeks, said Jim Pickett, Schaafsma’s ShelterBox fundraising compatriot and a fellow Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club member.
With the spring rains coming, earthquake-devastated Haiti continues to need shelter and supplies for its survivors, Pickett added.
And already 10,000 ShelterBoxes have been shipped to Port-au-Prince for distribution.
The boxes — compact blue-green crates — contain 10-person tents, basic tools, blankets, cooking gear and children’s kits with drawing books and crayons.
Schaafsma, 61, is a semi-retired carpenter who has traveled as a ShelterBox team volunteer to Peru, Mexico and Honduras in recent years.
This January, he went to Colombia to help his son, Torin, 25, build a playground with other workers with the Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace Corps-like mission there.
That work, and other volunteer labor, earned Schaafsma recognition as Sequim Citizen of the Year for 2009 during the Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce awards ceremony on Feb. 23.
An e-mail from Jens Pagotto, another ShelterBox team member already serving in Haiti, told Schaafsma to expect “cold showers and port-a-loos,” and to “bring some snacks that like hot weather.”
Expect bedlam
Upon arrival at the airport, expect “bedlam,” Pagotto wrote.
“Lots of taxis and touts [are] trying to make a living or fleece you for something or other . . . it’s not particularly unsafe, so feel free to walk out and be hassled by everyone if you really want to do so.
“. . . Make sure your phone works and then call when you clear the last hurdle of customs but before you leave the airport.”
Previous ShelterBox teams have got great contacts, Pagotto added, so it’s “just a matter of keeping the plates spinning and keeping the pressure on our partners to continue working hard and fast.”
“I will say that I’ve never worked somewhere where we are so welcome/needed — you’ll get a dozen people a day asking you if we have any tents for them.”
Many more ShelterBoxes will be sent to Haiti, along with the shipments to Chile following the Feb. 27 earthquake there.
Last year, Schaafsma and Pickett were the top fundraisers in the country for ShelterBox USA, collecting $64,000 in donations — enough for 64 ShelterBox crates.
“There is always a need for more,” Pickett said this week.
Donations may be made to any Rotary Club in Jefferson or Clallam county; checks should be made out to Rotary and marked “for ShelterBox.”
For information, phone Pickett at 360-681-4830.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
