By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

The e-mail’s subject line – “Emergency in Les Cayes” – screams read me.

It comes from Dr. Cynthia DeSoi, a physician who works at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Lewiston when she isn’t volunteering her services to orphans and others in Haiti.

And it comes with a plea from the Rev. Marc Boisvert, a Lewiston-born member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate who runs an orphanage called Project Hope in the Haitian city of Les Cayes.

Over the past two years, Boisvert and the nearly 250 children he cares for have weathered revolution, faced armed thugs and survived the floods of Tropical Storm Jeanne.

Now, with conditions little improved from the time when revolutionaries ousted ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide early in 2004, Boisvert has been asked to take on another 65 orphaned island children.

“We have a serious situation confronting us,” writes Boisvert to supporters like DeSoi. “A representative of the United Nations staff here, the local director of the Bureau of Social Services and the director of emergency preparedness came to see us yesterday. The reason: A small local orphanage is in crisis. Sixty-four little boys and one little girl ranging in age from 2 to 14 are housed in an abandoned school in Fonfrede.

“No beds, no food and no money. The director of the small orphanage has sold all his personal belongings to buy food and now he has nothing left. The three visitors asked us to take in these children.

“We have our own financial problems and can barely make ends meet,” Boisvert notes.

He outlined a budget that totals $17,187.50. The money is needed to pay for beds, mattresses, sheets and towels, clothing and shoes, medical and physical exams and treatment, and school supplies and uniforms. It will also cover the costs of hiring orphanage monitors, food, three teachers, kitchen and laundry help, personal hygiene and miscellaneous other needs.

“We have asked the (United Nations, Haitian social services and others) for assistance but none have the budgets to help these children. CRS, World Vision, Caritas cannot help.

“Can you? We’d need the total immediately and an additional $4,000 a month. I would not make this request of you if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. God bless our efforts.”

DeSoi, in a note accompanying Boisvert’s plea, said, “The economy of Haiti has become increasingly desperate in the last year and a half. The cost of food, gas and materials has skyrocketed.

“Children like these 65 orphans are paying the price for the continuing political fallout. Father Marc has continued to take in orphans and desperate children even when they cannot really afford to feed more. It is a matter of trust with him. Now he is faced with a real crisis.”

Lewiston-Auburn Rotarians have raised funds for Project Hope, as have Episcopal church groups and people at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center. Boisvert’s mother, Marguerite, and his sisters Gisele Biron and Denise Roy continue to live in the Lewiston area.

Besides the orphanage in Les Cayes, Project Hope operates a school, a soup kitchen, a small dispensary and a fledgling farming community where older children learn agriculture and trades while raising food for the orphanage.

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