Bright Future

Dear Reiser Relief’s online connoisseurs,

Thank you for reading today’s blog! Countless numbers of my fans and family have been urging me to make a blog post, so I have finally decided to appease their requests.

My name is Eric Kopen and I am a sophomore in college, on my first trip to Haiti. Thus far, the trip has been a thrilling “rollercoaster” of experiences. From distributing thousands of gallons of buckets of water to one the poorest slum in the world, holding and nursing sick and dying babies, and having swims in a nearby hotel pool, I have been exposed to things I could have never understood before the trip.

Today, we visited Reiser Heights, a top tier elementary school supported by Reiser Relief. After an exhilarating two-hour ride into the mountains on a truck the locals refer to as a “tap-tap”, we got to meet hundreds of young students enrolled at Reiser Heights. It was their end of year celebration, so we dabbled in festivities such as music, dance, and a “goat giveaway”, where more than 20 families got to take home a free, brand new, healthy goat. Our group even had the opportunity to perform a well-received triple performance: a skit, dance, and song.

The visit to Reiser Heights has been my favorite day of the trip. The main reason I liked it so much was that the students are doing so well; I can see a bright future ahead for all of them. Reiser Heights best exemplifies the progress our efforts in Haiti have made. Reiser Relief has provided hundreds of kids with education, an invaluable asset they would have never had access to before. This is unlike the slums, where no matter how much food and water we give the children, their lives will be plagued with gang violence, slavery, and more; the children in the slums are trapped in a cycle, while the children at Reiser Heights are escaping it.

There’s three more full days left in the trip. I have enjoyed every moment of it, and love the people I have met. I have faith Reiser Relief will continue to make progress in helping the impoverished Haitians. If there’s one thing I want the readers of this to take away, it’s this: your contributions to Reiser Relief actually make a difference. I’ve seen it.

Peace, I love you mom,

Eric