Kechener Petit

Kechener Petit, of Lehigh Acres, a business and computer education teacher at Gateway High School, is in Haiti this week along with his pastor, both members of a group that has built a school for underprivileged Haitian students 15 miles from Port-au-Prince.

The earthquake which occurred last Tuesday, Jan. 12 at sometime around 5 p.m. has left the capital city of Haiti in crumbles and estimates of those killed in the earthquake may reach between 100,000 to 200,000 people, according to news accounts over the weekend.

Petit is a member of Passion Rescue Mission whose members have dug into their pockets to build and pay for a teacher salaries at their school, Genecoit Vertus School of Excellence, which opened just last this past September.

Not only is Petit interested in what may have happened to the school, but he is interested in finding out about his family friends in Haiti.

He left Friday on a private plane and was expected to remain there for the rest of this week, coming home this weekend.

Ashley Theogene and Valeriel Lemonier have family in Haiti. Valeriel's mother was also planning to go to Haiti to offer her help as a registered nurse. Photo by MEL TOADVINE

“I don’t know what I’ll find when I get there,” Petit told The Citizen a day before he left the U.S. to fly to Haiti. I’m going to check on our school and the students and the teachers. I’ll even get involved in trying to rescue people in the rubble. I can’t stay here and watch the news on TV and not get involved,” Petit said.

He said that some 80 to 90 percent of the children in Haiti are uneducated and that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Half of its population was under the age of 18 before the quake.

“Theses are my people and I have to do what I can to help,” he said during a class break. Several students in his computer classes are Haitian and have relatives on the Caribbean island.

“I have been texting over and over again with my cell phone, but I can’t get through” he said. “I’ve watched CNN news whenever I can get the opportunity in the computer lab in which he teaches computer education,” he said.

Petit was among the first to know that there had been an earthquake in Haiti.

Kechener Petit uses his cell phone to no avail as he tried to text family members in Haiti last week before he flew to Port-au-Prince. Photo by MEL TOADVINE

“I was talking to a friend in Haiti and she began screaming and may have shouted ‘earthquake’ and then the line went dead,” said Petit, who has taught at Gateway High School for five years. He arrived in the U.S. back in the 1980s with his family and received his education in America.

“My family was lucky inasmuch as they could afford to leave the country and bring us to America. It’s the land of opportunity. And they wanted that for me,” he said.

And that is what he wants for the children, the hundreds of thousands of uneducated children in Haiti, but it has to start with one school at a time,” he said.

He blames the government for much of what has happened as far as the lack of education is concerned, not hesitating for a moment when he spoke of the corruption in the island nation that borders the Dominican Republic.

Friends here in Lee County and elsewhere who are members of the group that built the school and who send money to organizations to aid Haitians belive he is in Haiti, despite the quagmire of planes landing at the airport in Port-au-Prince on Friday. He may have arrived before the deluge of air jets coming with supplies from all over the world. The air strip in Port-au-Prince is small and can not even be compared to airports like Lee County Regional Airport or airports in nearby Miami and Tampa. Some flights were diverted to the Dominican Republic and then later were able to fly to Port-au-Prince. Early reports indicated that there was no fuel there late last week for some planes to refuel to return to the U.S. The American military has taken over the airport operations and also removing huge trailers from the port.

Petit worried also about his sister and other relatives living in Port-au-Prince and nearby neighborhoods. He said his sister lived near the Montana Hotel, which was nearly flattened because of the earthquake. The Montana was where many vacationers stayed when they visited the city. Not far away is the government mansion, compared to our White House. A beautiful white building was destroyed due to the quake. And also the U.N. consulate was crushed. It was where several U.N. workers were working as peace keepers in Haiti.

Petit said people of Haiti had no warning of the impending earthquake and nobody ever thought it would be affected with an earthquake despite tremors there in 1946.

The earthquake left he country’s president homeless. Not only did the government mansion with some members of the government crumble, but so did the President’s home.

Accompanying Petit was Pastor Genoese Vertus of the Tabernacle of Worship in Fort Myers.

Petit is married with two young sons. He had been in Haiti in April when the school opened and was there again this past December when he said he saw many of his family members and friends.

Petit said that in America, people take so much of what they have and their freedoms for granted. It’s not that way in Haiti where people are starving and were living in huts in some neighborhoods. In other areas, people lived in small cinder block homes.

“It looks like everything was lost from what I have seen so far on TV,” Petit said last Thursday before he and his pastor flew out of Miami.

The school his organization supports is 15 miles north of Port-au-Prince, near the mountains and friends here don’t know how much damage the school may have received, or if any of the students who walk to school were injured or worse, dead.

Those in the U.S. can find out more about the mission and the school by going online to: Passionrescuemission.org. There is also an account number there for the Bank of America for people who may want to help the mission.

Joseph Roll, Gateway High School principal supports the trip to Haiti, said Petit.

“I appreciate his support to let me fly out of here. He knows how important this is to me. A fellow teacher at Gateway, Theresa Bauman said the school would sponsor a major fundraiser after Petit returns.

For those who want to help the mission, you can deposit money in the Bank of America’s account which is 898026468074, according to the website.

Passion Rescue Mission has a small office in Fort Myers. It is located at 2711 Park Winder Drive, Suite 301. The phone number there is 239-633-4987.

Petit said the Genecoit Vertus School of Excellence, which Passion Rescue Mission built, has plans for 200 kids.

At school, the students are fed because most of the students come from families where food is a rare commodity.

Petit, who is a co-founder of PRM said the organization is a faith based, non profit organization which offers help, hope and spiritual healing to poor urban and deprived multi-culture communities and expecially in Haiti.

Maggie Joseph: executive director of Passion Rescue Mission, who lives in Miami and who is president of the group, said over the weekend that she had not heard from Petit and they have assumed he is in Haiti where they are sure he is doing everything in his power to help, even if it means digging people out from under the ruins.

“It’s heart-breaking. I’ve been watching TV news ever since the earthquake hit Haiti,” she said.

“Our only hope is that since the school was north of the city and closer to the mountains that it was not damaged and none of the 105 students or teachers were injured,” she said.

Some of Petit’s students’ family members were also planning to fly to Haiti to be of help.

Ashley Theogene, a 10th grader said her mom was flying over. Her father was in nearby Petionville when the quake hit. But he called last week to say he was okay. Also heading for Haiti last week was a family member of Valeriel Lemonier, another 10th grade student.

“I’ve been devastated and living in fear of how bad it is over there,” she said. Ashley and Valerie’s mothers are cousins and she said her mother, sister and brother are all nurses.

Before Petit left, he said he hoped Port-au-Prince could be rebuilt, but he didn’t have good feelings about his hopes.