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any of the hospitality industry’s product manufacturers have reached a helping hand toward the suffering people and country of Haiti amid the most destructive natural disaster it has experienced in more than 200 years.
Because of the nature of the business, many product companies understand and know first-hand how important it is for people like Haitians to have the means to work in manufacturing facilities and in the wake of such calamity, most people are out of homes, let alone jobs.
Stray Dog Designs, based in Chattanooga, Tenn., has created a Haitian Worker Relief Fund to offer help in various forms to go directly to the company’s workers in Haiti who have been displaced, injured or are homeless. The company will match $.50 on every dollar raised up to $10,000. Stray Dog Designs has a strong connection with Haiti as many artisans and workers there make the company’s papier mache products. The company went to Haiti in 2005 as part of a mission to support sustainable jobs, create employment in needy areas and seek artisans with history and skill. The company said the following in a statement, “We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to our many friends, customers and colleagues who have called and written expressing concern about Haiti and the people with whom Stray Dog Designs works there. In the wake of the recent tragic earthquake, we, like the rest of the world, await more information and news of our workers and friends in Haiti. We know that there is a high probability that the building where our artisans worked was damaged. We pray that was the worst of it, but we don’t yet know with so much post-earthquake chaos at this time.”
For more information on how to donate to the fund, please contact Stray Dog Designs.
Another company lending its aid to Haiti is Arzu Studio. The company’s Arzu Studio Hope program plans to help the ailing country by donating 25 percent of the purchase price of all its rugs to Partners In Health. Partners In Health is Haiti’s largest provider of rural healthcare and operates about 10 hospitals and clinics in partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health. Any online purchase of Arzu rugs through Jan. 31 will be included in this program. To find out more, please visit Arzu's Hope website.
Design Within Reach, newly chaired by John Edelman, is vowing to match up to $25,000 in donations to UNICEF’s Haiti Earthquake Fund, for a collective total donation of $50,000. UNICEF will provide supplies to allow access to sanitation, safe water and basic healthcare in Haiti and is also preparing materials and staff to help protect children. “While our company’s name is Design Within Reach, today we are proud to provide help within reach to the people of Haiti,” said Edelman. “I am equally proud of the support of our customers and employees in joining me in providing assistance.” Customers who would like to participate in this effort can click here to make a donation through the DWR/UNICEF program.
Another well-known furniture retailer, ikea, is planning to make a donation of 50,000 Canadian dollars to UNICEF, a long standing philanthropic partner. Ikea Canada customers will also be offered the opportunity to make a two dollar (Canadia) donation to UNICEF in the checkout lines through the end of February.