LI group's new goal: To build Haitian village

A pilot, a teacher, two builders, a counselor.

The five people - four from Long Island - are among a group that banded together over the last year to help Haiti recover from the massive earthquake that struck the nation's capital last January. Wings Over Haiti has provided food, water, supplies and even a small schoolhouse.

Jonathan Nash Glynn of Sag Harbor was one of the first private pilots to fly medical supplies to Haiti after the deadly quake that left millions of people homeless and has made at least a dozen trips since then. Last March, he, along with a teacher from Port Jefferson Station and a Haitian-American guidance counselor from upstate Middletown founded Wings Over Haiti.

"We all had the same goal: to help educate the children so they could become self-sustaining," said Glynn, 59. "We wanted to provide access to free education that supports the development of critical thinking skills so we could give Haiti's next generation the opportunity to realize the true potential of their country."

Melissa McMullan, 38, who teaches English and social studies at JFK Middle School in Port Jefferson Station, said her students wanted to help.

"My 90 students were so distraught after seeing the images of the earthquake destruction on television that I was asking myself what I could do," she said.

"I decided if we could stuff backpacks with donations of toiletries and stuffed animals, it would give the Haitian people a sense of ownership after they had lost all their possessions," McMullan said.

Donations of shampoo, soap and other goods flooded in, and Glynn offered to take the backpacks on his next trip to Haiti. McMullan flew to Haiti herself in April.

"I was shocked that these kids had no shoes on, and they were crawling around in the rocks and broken glass," she said. "There was sheer destruction and rubble everywhere, and I thought that nobody should live like this."

McMullan became convinced that the only way Haiti could recover was through education. She joined an initiative to build a school in Croix-des-Bouquet, on land owned by the family of Shad St. Louis, a guidance counselor at Middletown High School. St. Louis, 25, was born in Haiti and came to New York City with his family at age 12.

"After the earthquake, I went back to Haiti in February to help distribute water and to bring three tons of donated food supplies," he said. "I felt my people have been receiving handouts all their lives and they were still making no progress, so the best way to help them is to empower them to help themselves."

Last July, Wings Over Haiti knocked down a ruined school and cleared the rubble with the help of local residents. In September, they returned with a building crew and a modular building donated by Riverhead contractor Jack Hunter. Wings Over Haiti opened the school in October with 32 children and four teachers.

Another 11 children have enrolled, and a fifth teacher has been hired. Through mutual projects, McMullan's students share a learning partnership with the students from Haiti.Sag Harbor Elementary School has also donated 300 pounds of children's books, wrapped them for Christmas, and had them flown down by Glynn.

The team plans to use donations to buy two more acres, expand the school, which is near the capital, Port-au-Prince, and provide space for agriculture, architecture, reading, writing, math, art and music.

"Our goal is to have a 20-acre kind of school-village that runs independently on solar power, clean water from a pump, and homegrown food," Glynn said.

Bridgehampton builder and developer Alfred Tuffs, who helped with construction, said the experience changed his life.

"I had no idea what I was walking into, with 100-degree heat, cholera and malaria epidemics, contaminated water," he said. "But the survival spirit of the Haitian people amazed me and made me want to help."

More information on the nonprofit is available at www.wingsoverhaiti.org.