Vassar Haiti Project

The Vassar Haiti Project and the Vassar Club of Washington DC hosted a sale of Haitian paintings and handcraft at St. Mark’s (Capitol Hill) Episcopal Church on February 5, 6, & 7, 2016.  As the co-founder of VHP, Lila Meade shares her being in the art sale.

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It all starts with one’s word. Jackie Eiting came to Haiti with the Vassar Haiti Project (VHP) last March. When we got back home, she simply declared, “I want to do something for the people of Chermaitre”. And that was it: a simple declaration that probably would have gotten lost in the world of today.

But Jackie is a woman of her word and made the impossible happen. Jackie has her own consulting practice specializing in executive coaching, team development and leadership development. She comes up to Vassar and works with the VHP leadership team to coach us in thinking bigger.

It took Jackie a few months to find a partner in Washington DC to agree to host an art sale with complete strangers. College students, no less! And from that one little “yes” all things became possible.

Kidus Girma’18, Yujie Feng ’17, Andrew and I trekked down to DC and were introduced to our new partners who were (naturally) not sure of what to expect. Maureen Shea and other committed members of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church near the Capitol building showed us the space where we would host the sale. How should we make all this work? We made our promise to have the event be great and we had no idea how that would enfold other than our underlying pure intention that we want to support education in a rural village some 1400 miles from New York.

And then it began.…how would we get people from DC to the sale….how do we get the students to the sale…..how do we get the art to the sale…..where do we stay when we get to DC (we don’t incur hotel expenses if possible)….how many students….how much artwork….? Well, I think you get the idea. The questions never stopped unfolding until the minute we departed some four months later.

Judy Lem, Class of 2003 and Chair of the Vassar alumnae club in DC met with us and offered the possibility of having the club support our work in Haiti which she has followed for years. She enrolled the VCDC alum committee and from that moment on, the questions continued: how do share our work with the alums, how do we get them to get our work? how can they assist us during the sale? Well, I think you get the idea again. Months later, before the sale, we realized there were more than 20 alum volunteers and panicked about what would they all do to help us during the sale?

And then there were the VHP student volunteers. So many students wanted to come to DC from Vassar! We had fifteen current VHP students join us, mostly our student leadership. And that’s in addition to the many VHP alums who are now working in DC who came and joined the party. Ready as can be, they juggled class work and job work, heading to our art sale, ready to take the baton and run.

It seems as though the last fifteen years of our Project’s existence was a dress rehearsal for this art sale. We arrived after 9pm on Thursday night, unloaded the van and wondered who we would all be staying with? Jackie arranged it all and our welcoming hosts showed us to their respective digs. Friday morning: OMG, where do we begin? And the living questions became answers, one at a time.

“Ti pa ti pa, wazo fe niche li” one of our resonating mantras in Haitian creole, begins to manifest itself. Little by little, the bird builds its nest.

I wish you could have seen us in action. The team moves seamlessly through each phase of the setup process. Andrew (Meade) orchestrates each step of the way with facility and calm. Team leaders work with alums – complete strangers – as they enter the room and ask, “What can I do?” It’s amazing to see this process and as the day unfolds, we become family. The alumnae poured in to support our work that day and night…many said that they hadn’t been part of Vassar events for a long time and it was great to have them dance with us. Three days later, many connections were made, and we made a lot of money for our programs in Haiti. And we had so much fun. Never to be forgotten.

We left St. Mark’s that Sunday, all a bit different. Maureen told us that her neighbors were texting photos of all the items they bought to each other, proudly showing off their new paintings. Our students talked to DC residents and alums who work everywhere from the World Bank to the White House and everything in between. Alums ask to be put on our volunteer list. And as we leave, embracing the new friends who were strangers just days before, we wonder, “how can we ever repeat that?”

And we remember that it all starts with one’s word.

Lila Meade, Co-founder

Vassar Haiti Project

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