Helping Hands for Haiti
Frank Chauvin, a six foot-two, 240-pound retired detective from the Windsor Police Service, founded “Le foyer des filles Chrétiennes” Orphanage for girls, with a $17,000 donation he received at his retirement party. At 25,000 square feet, the orphanage included two dormitories, two classrooms, a medical clinic and an administration building with a cooking area.
Unfortunately, the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010 changed everything. Three 18 year old girls and one worker from the orphanage were killed that day and the buildings declared unsafe for the girls. What Frank Chauvin helped to build over the past 22 years was crumbled in minutes.
While the cities of Windsor and Calgary rallied around Frank to help with his rebuilding efforts, Jessica Pelletier, a grade 10 student from HNMCS, travelled to Windsor to present Chauvin with a cheque for $2,150, which her classmates collected after discovering the name of the school matched that of Chauvin's charitable organisation, the Holy Name of Mary Food Fund.
In an e-mail we received Nora Bertram-Romero, from the Mayor of Windsor’s office, says “We wish to extend our sincere thanks and appreciation for encouraging Jessica to attend the event held in Windsor, and to share the Holy Name of Mary College School story with our community. The audience was impressed with the connection between both the all girl school and all girl orphanage. We were all proud of her representation of the school, and of the successful fundraising initiative”.