Pierre Garcon, whose parents were born in Haiti, proudly displays country’s flag after Colts’ 20-3By Jeff Glor
Indianapolis Colt Pierre Garcon gives out food in Haiti. (CBS)
The “CBS Evening News” anchor returns to Haiti three months after a devastating earthquake struck the country
(CBS) After Pierre Garcon caught the winning touchdown pass in January’s AFC championship game, he hoisted the Haitian flag, a powerful signal of hope for a devastated country.
People in Haiti know they’ll be cleaning up a natural disaster for years if not decades. Garcon, a wide receiver for the Indianapolis Colts, has been one source of hope for the country following January’s earthquake, CBS News Correspondent Jeff Glor reports.
Now that hope becomes help for his country and for his family.
“Right now it’s the first time back since the earthquake,” said Garcon. “We are going to Leogan, where my family is from.”
Three months after the earthquake, it’s a shock to find some relatives still living in tents outside his family’s home. They fear another earthquake.
To see it all together outside of television, it hits a little deeper and harder and makes you want to work a lot harder for them.
Garcon may be a football star in the United States, but in Haiti he’s a lifeline.
“This is very important,” Garcon said, referring to bags of food he was giving out. “Anytime you get a chance to eat, you take advantage of it.”
His group served 750,000 meals on one trip, a stark contrast to the chaotic scenes in the days immediately following the earthquake.
“We are serving 200 to 300 kids today,” Garcon said.
For the 2 million Haitians displaced in the disaster, there is never enough.
“Since the earthquake happened, I eat less than I’m used to,” Reina, a 12-year-old displaced Haitian, said through a translator.
Garcon’s sister Gina Garcon is stunned and saddened at the changes.
“I’m never used to seeing people begging for food so much,” Gina Garcon said. “Just to get through the day, they’ll do anything – ‘We’re not beggars. We didn’t used to beg like this.'”
People in Haiti hope Garcon will be their voice.
“If are very far from Port-au-Prince, so you so they forget you,” Lucson Desrosiers, a missionworker, said through a translator.
“We’re trying to help the whole country, not just a certain part,” said Garcon. “Everybody is in need. It’s the hunger, it’s the poverty, it’s not just, you know, the earthquake.”
Garcon partnered with the Northwest Haiti Christian Mission from St. Louie du Nord – a hundred miles from Port-au-Prince – a place where there are no paved roads and only limited electricity.
The mission’s orphanage was already overflowing. Now it’s taking in children from Port-au-Prince who’ve been abandoned. Unbelievably, a 5-year-old boy named Peterson weighed just 9 pounds when he arrived.
“Haiti is actually getting worse and worse on a daily basis,” Gina Garcon said.
She thinks it’s time to focus on developing rural areas.
“It’s going to take a long time, a whole century to get Port-au-Prince rebuilt,” said Gina Garcon. “What about investing in the countryside, teach them how to do things rather then constantly sending food over here.”
The Garcons are stressing education, helping to get one school reopened.
“I like going to school,” Roseme, a student, said through a translator. “I like learning and reading. It will change my life eventually.”
Garcon focuses on helping Haitians to help themselves and to move on.
“You’ve got to move on, you’ve got to look forward to the next day,” said Garcon. “You can’t look back, and it’s done and over, and so we gotta keep moving on with what we can.”
This week, Congressional leaders in Washington reached a bipartisan agreement on a measure to help Haiti’s economy by allowing more imports of Haitian clothing and textiles.
