GUILDERLAND – Amanda Pierce hopes to one day keep stats for her favorite baseball team – the New York Mets.

Amanda is a 16-year-old junior at Guilderland High School. Math is her favorite subject, she said. A recent English assignment, though, got her really thinking about how fortunate she is to be living in America.

Her English teacher, Aaron Sicotte, asked his students to write letters to persuade people to do something, Amanda said.

She wanted to ask people to do something important, she said. She thought about her aunt, Patricia Pierce, and the work she has done in Haiti, she said. Patricia Pierce, an occupational therapist, has done volunteer work with Fonkoze – the largest micro-finance institution offering assistance to the rural poor in Haiti – and has also worked on medical missions there through St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany.
"It started out as just a school project," Amanda Pierce said. But she realized that she "could actually do something to help someone," she added.
Amanda wrote a letter to the Enterprise editor, asking people to donate to the people of Haiti – the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. "I thought I could do something that would be good," she said.
"I wanted people to find out more information about it, and realize how fortunate they are," Amanda Pierce said. "Even donating a little bit, they can make a difference in people’s lives," she said.

"Land of hope"

Patricia Pierce has been to Haiti on five different trips, she told The Enterprise. The island is roughly 10,700 square miles and is located about 800 miles southeast of Miami. "Haiti is the land of hope," Patricia Pierce said. "There is so much potential there."
When Patricia first arrived in Haiti, she was stunned. "I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the poverty," she said, citing the high number of orphans, many of whom are malnourished and have no shoes.
"There are no opportunities there," she said sadly. "They don’t have a lot of industry."
The government – run by President Jean-Bertand Aristide – doesn’t do too much to help the people, either, Patricia said. "The government doesn’t seem very stable," she said.
There is no social welfare system, she said. "If you don’t work, you don’t eat." Haitians don’t have access to clean water; they don’t have a good source of electricity; and there isn’t much of a health-care system, she said. The average life expectancy for Haitians is about 50 years.
"It’s a pretty sad situation over there," Patricia Pierce said.
The people rely heavily on charity organizations like Fonkoze, she said. "They are sort of the backbone of Haitian survival."Patricia Pierce is hoping to find a local church that would "twin" with a Haitian church to help provide support for the people there. She said that she also encourages people to travel to Haiti.
"It feels good to go over there," she said. Until you see it with your own eyes, it is easy to push it out of your mind, she said.
Patricia Pierce also traveled with her brother Ed, Amanda’s father, to St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean. There they met Tolrick, 12, and Zoreese, 7 – the two children that Ed Pierce, and his wife, Barb, sponsor. "The kids were so enthusiastic and appreciative," Patricia Pierce said.
Ed Pierce is also working on trying to get sponsorship for a book-mobile program similar to the one run through the Albany Public Library, he said. The main obstacle for Hiatians is the high rate of illiteracy, he said. "If you can’t read, you can’t learn," Ed Pierce said.
There’s a sort of simplicity that goes along with the poverty, he said. "There’s less of the rat race," he said, referring to the way Americans tend to work 60 or 70 hours a week to earn more money and buy material goods.
"There’s not a lot of college-educated folks in St. Vincent," Ed Pierce said. "What you see is a lot of people come here [to the United States] to get educated, and then it becomes too easy to stay."
"You don’t see that kind of poverty here," he added.
The best thing that people can do to help is to send money, Patricia Pierce said, adding that the Christian Children’s Fund is well organized. "Usually when you help people, you feel good" It’s a good balance," she said.

For Amanda Pierce, just knowing that she tried to help someone is rewarding, she said.