We had a great weekend at Hot Shops. We sold a lot and were able to share about Cazale and the Rescue Center and Clinic with many new people. We love to talk about Haiti and why we do what we do. We will be adding new artists and items to our store very soon so check back often.

We worked with local artisans, came home with lots of beautiful things to sell, and witnessed a lot of healing in both children and adults.

We will be posting more about our time, but for now we wanted to let you witness some of the healing that takes place every day at Real Hope For Haiti.

This adorable little guy is Dumond. When we were in Haiti a little over a year ago we were  hoping he was going to survive. His legs were split open from Kwashiorkor and he looked completely hopeless. I wanted to believe that he would live and prayed a lot that he would.

This picture broke my heart. Dumond was in so much pain and this little guy kept patting him on the head like he was trying to comfort his friend.

When we got to the Rescue Center and saw him on this visit, I was SO happy. My daughters came to Haiti with us this trip and they instantly fell in love with this spunky little guy. He looked so healthy and smiled ALL the time. It brought tears to my eyes when I remembered what he had gone through and how amazing of a place Real Hope For Haiti is to provide this type of healing every single day.

                                               His smile is the best. thing. ever.

One of the other amazing moments involved sweet little Mitha.

Mitha came to the Rescue Center as an infant with a severe leg malformation.

She has always been adorable, spunky, and funny. She was amazingly mobile and fast and never let anything hold her back. The hope was always for Mitha to have surgery to correct her malformation and be able to walk. On one of our visits last year, this finally became a reality.

A group of visiting doctors was in Haiti and able to perform surgery. They ended up needing to amputate her leg at the knee and she came home to the Rescue Center the same day as her surgery. She healed quickly and was back to her normal spunky self.

This visit we were able to see her new prosthesis. It was so amazing to be able to see her walking and running. It didn’t really surprise us that she could be that fast. Mitha is always fast.

We thank everyone who helps this amazing place and who has helped Artists For Hope to provide food and care for these kids.

You are helping kids heal every day. What a gift to get to witness this healing!

We are getting ready to head back to Haiti! We are SO ready to be back in Cazale.

The month of March has been great. We had a wonderful Gallery Show at Hot Shops Art Center and most of our items from Haiti have sold. That means we can bring a lot back and our artisans can make a lot more. It’s been great to share about creating jobs and helping children and families in the mountains of Haiti. Thank you to everyone who attended, purchased items, and volunteered to make this such a great success!

We are working on a website update and will have a lot to of pictures and items to add to our store soon when we return. Exciting things to come!

We hope to share a lot about why we love Haiti so much, why jobs are so important there, and how we can feed starving children through art. With a community like Hot Shops, that truly loves art, this is really going to be a fun and amazing night.

We wanted to give a little sneak peek to show some of the work you can see and purchase Friday night and throughout the month of March.

I have to admit I got a little teary eyed seeing the gallery completely set up yesterday. All of this amazing artwork to help create jobs, feed kids, and bring hope to people living in extreme poverty situations. So thankful to everyone who has been so willing to donate and help.

The items from Haiti are already selling quickly. We have some beautiful paintings, jewelry, baskets, dolls, and more that were handmade in and around Cazale, Haiti.

So many artists stopping in have been commenting on how much they love Jerry’s paintings and jewelry. We are so excited that he is getting so much recognition.

He lives in Cazale and is very talented.

More Artists For Hope items made in Haiti. This table was full the beginning of the week. A lot has sold already. We are hoping it will be completely empty soon.

The beautiful necklaces are made by artist Joey Breed.

This great prayer flag is made by artists Jenn B. Mills and Gerry Klein

I love that photographer Heather Rizzino made this to put up with the photos she donated.

Heather Rizzino’s photos are so striking.

You definitely must be there Friday to check them out!

I love this piece by artist Nicholas Pella.

It’s even more beautiful in person.

This is a close up of another great piece donated by Nick.

This incredible sculpture was donated by artist Susan Woodford.

It is titled “Masculine Grounding Feminine Flowing” and represents the abstract embodiment of balancing one another.

This great photo, “Love Locks” was taken in Florence, Italy by photographer Dawn Kronaizl. Sweethearts write their names on a lock and throw the key into the Arno river to forever lock their love. So sweet.

My youngest daughter has truly enjoyed helping this week. She’s also enjoyed relaxing a bit under the photos and seeing all the artwork.

The American Heart Associations, Art 4 the heart, event will be going on in the gallery across the hall from the Artists For Hope gallery at the same time on Friday night.

Another great reason to see you at the Hot Shops Art Center this Friday. Come see me (Roberta) and artist Dori Settles (who has worked SO hard to help put this all together. Thank you Dori!) and lots of our volunteers and artists at 1301 Nicholas Street, Omaha NE 68104 from 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm. See you there!

It was heartbreaking and I hoped that he would be a child that could fight through this and get better. He had such a sweet spirit and kept trying to smile. I was thankful he was at the Rescue Center in Cazale. This was the best place he could be, because he could get the life saving Medika Mamba and health care that he needed to stay alive.

The Rescue Center just posted an update about some of the kids on the Medika Mamba program. This is Guynel when he first arrived the week we were in Haiti.

This is Guynel this week!

Wow did this make my heart happy.

As we are busy preparing for the Gallery Opening for Artists For Hope, it was so great to see this, and I hope that artists seeing pictures of kids like Guynel being transformed back to healthy will help them see what their donations will do. They help to care for kids so they don’t die. They help give medical care for them. They help save lives.

Thanks for helping Guynel!

We had a great day hanging things for the show and will continue to hang new items throughout the week. This gorgeous owl is made by fiber artist Shea Wilkinson.

We hung lots of items from Haiti. Birdhouses. Chickens.

This beautiful quilted wall hanging was made by artist Nicky Van Walbeek.

Bags made in Haiti from recycled straps off of packing crates from the shipping docks.

Another peek at a great piece by Shea Wilkinson.

We are so excited to be able to share about Artists For Hope with people in the city of Omaha and we hope more artists and people will decide to help to feed kids and create jobs with us in Haiti after learning more about what we do.

More photos and artists featured at the Open House to come soon.

Can’t wait to see you on Friday, March 9 from 6pm-9pm at The Nicholas Street Gallery in Hot Shops. Located at 1301 Nicholas Street  Omaha, NE 68102.

I’m pretty sure I was the only person there who cried. I teared up multiple times.

Not because I was moved by the presentations or the awesomeness of the Food Bank. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about the starving children I’ve met and held in Cazale, Haiti. I realized once again that Haiti has messed me up. In a great way… but I will never be the same.

They showed a beautifully made video of families happily walking through the food distribution centers, being handed boxes and bags FULL of food. The thing that really got me was these families appeared very well fed. No one had bones showing. No one was swollen because of lack of protein. They were experiencing tough times and thankfully these food banks are available to help fill in the gaps. Families were smiling and everyone was super happy.

Images start flashing in my mind of the one year old baby I’ve held that I can see his little heart beating through his chest because he doesn’t have one ounce of fat on him. The toddlers that can’t stand up because they are so swollen and their skin is oozing fluid. The kids I’ve know that are no longer on this earth because lack of food caused them to die. The extreme opposite of what I was seeing in this video at this fancy fundraiser.

My husband kept rubbing my leg and saying “I know, I know” because he does know. He’s seen it too. He’s held these kids. He’s seen them die. I don’t know if anyone else out of the hundreds and hundreds of people at the fundraiser truly had any idea what it was like to see people who are literally starving to death. Maybe there were other people crying too for the same reason. You can’t truly understand it I guess until it’s right in your face. Then you can’t ever forget it.

I needed to write this post more for myself than anything. I hope all of us in the First World realize how blessed we are. We have SO much. People might be struggling in our country, but the resources we have are amazing. The health care we have is amazing. The government assistance that people have available is amazing. The Food Bank is amazing.

I dream of a day when no one is hungry. I’m not sure that day will ever come on this earth, but until then I hope people will continue to fight with us for the kids and adults that are starving. People around the world that go to bed day after day with empty stomachs. We will continue to fight and I’m sure the Food Bank will continue to make me cry.

The numbers of Cholera patients in Cazale is up a bit again, but people in Cazale have done a lot of education in the area to keep the numbers as low as possible.

This is sweet little Mitha, sleeping on me after she returned from having her leg amputated by a medical team in Haiti. My husband is a physician and was able to care for her and give her the pain meds she needed after her surgery. My role through the night was snuggling and keeping her comfortable. Loved every second.

She was so tough.

It was hard to even imagine the pain and what she was feeling after most of her leg was removed. She is naturally a very active, fun, and feisty little girl. We knew she wouldn’t be set back for long. RHFH was there to provide her everything she needed from when she first arrived at the clinic as a baby until now. Another reason why we love them so much.

We just got an update and learned that she got her new prosthesis. She looks SO big and so happy! You can visit the Rescue Center’s blog here to learn more about how great Mitha is doing and her friend Epanie who is helping her learn to live with only one leg.