About the Collaborative
In April 2009, Father Walin DeCamps, a Haitian priest overseeing several missions and schools, preached at Trinity Episcopal Church in Staunton, Virginia. His presence and proclamation were so moving that a number of moved parishioners (delete) help his mission. Today, the Virginia Haiti Collaborative, a group of churches and organizations in the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia, continues to remain in close communication and collaboration with Ecole St. Marc, a school in Haiti, supporting its faculty and students in order to help strengthen their community, especially at a time when Haiti is embroiled in political upheaval.
Virginia Haiti Collaborative Members
Trinity Lynchburg
Trinity Arrington
Emmanuel Staunton
St. John's Waynesboro
Good Shepherd Blue Grass
Trinity Staunton
Stuart Hall School (currently inactive)
Grace Episcopal Lexington
The Episcopal Diocese of Haiti
National Association of Episcopal Schools - Partnership Program
History of the Collaborative
The work of the Episcopal Church in Haiti is deeply faithful – and deeply challenged. Sixty Haitian Episcopal priests work tirelessly in very difficult conditions to establish and maintain church schools. They travel by jeep, motorcycle, horse or foot, negotiating mountain trails and fording rivers, to reach the modest structures that serve as churches, schools and clinics for their Haitian communities.
Father Walin DeCamps’s 2009 visit to Staunton, Virginia prompted the creation of the Collaborative with the help of Roger Bowen, a retired Episcopal priest who coordinates partnerships between Haitian schools and Episcopal schools and churches in the USA.
On September 8, 2009, under Fr. Bowen's leadership, 15 parishioners from Emmanuel Church, Staunton; Trinity Church, Staunton; Good Shepherd Church, Blue Grass; St. John’s Church, Waynesboro and Stuart Hall School, Staunton; along with Staunton News Leader reporter Cindy Corell, met to discuss a potential collaborative effort to support one Episcopal school in rural Haiti – St. Marc’s School in the village of Cerca-la-Source.
In 2010, seven people from the Collaborative, as well as an architect, and a member from another partnership, traveled to Haiti to begin a relationship with the people of St. Marc's in the small town of Cerca-la-Source near the border of the Dominican Republic,. Since constructing a more substantial school building in 2011, the Collaborative has focused (delete its) fundraising efforts on teachers' salaries and purchasing school supplies for students and teachers. Since 2009, dozens of Virginians have traveled to visit our partners. Recent political chaos in Haiti has prevented those visits (delete here) and we are hopeful for an (delete d) end to that chaos so that we may visit our friends in Haiti again.
Today, Ecole St. Marc enrolls 350 students in preschool through secondary school. Twenty teachers serve the students under the direction of Pere Schneyder Couloute.The Virginia Haiti Collaborative meets via Zoom with Pere Couloute on the second Wednesday of each month to receive updates, plan fundraising events, and maintain our relationship virtually until we are able to once again visit in-person.
The Episcopal Church in Haiti
The Diocese of Haiti is the most populous and fastest-growing diocese in the Episcopal Church. Its founder, the Rt. Rev. James Theodore Holly, born in 1829, was the first black bishop in the Episcopal Church . His birthday is celebrated as a feast day in the Episcopal Church in recognition of his remarkable contributions in support of the rural poor, primarily subsistence farmers. This focus continues today. Bp. Holly insisted that each church also serve as a school, in order to advance literacy.
Founding and supporting schools has been the heart of the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti's mission. Living in one of the world's poorest countries, the majority of Haitians lack the basic things we take for granted as essential to maintaining a good standard of living. In a country where nearly half the people are still unable to read, literacy is a step toward self-determination. But, given the inability of many Haitian parents to pay the small school fees, the best hope for survival of these schools is for them to establish partnerships with schools and parishes in the United States.
The Diocese of Haiti includes 60 priests, 250 churches, over 200 elementary and high schools and numerous hospitals and clinics, technical schools, feeding and clean water projects, homeless shelters, reforestation efforts, and other programs designed to improve the lives of Haiti's 11 million citizens. Most Episcopal schools in Haiti are supported by Episcopal Church Schools in the USA through a partnership program founded by the Reverend Roger Bowen during his long career as a teacher and headmaster in Episcopal Schools. The NAES Haitian School Partnership program is currently directed by Dr. Serena Beeks.