Hampton Roads churches help Haitian orphanage thrive

For 12 years, Lefort Jean-Louis has worked to keep poor children off the streets of Haiti.

With the help of several Catholic churches in Hampton Roads, he’s grown a small orphanage about 70 miles north of Port-au-Prince into one of the region’s largest private employers.

About 250 children now live at Maison Fortuné Orphanage in Hinche. Another 150 kids from the surrounding community attend school there, he said.

But just keeping children safe for a few years is not enough for Jean-Louis.

The kids are getting older. One has already graduated from high school. Many more are almost there. Where will they go when they leave the orphanage?

“If they don’t have a skill, they will just end up back on the street,” Jean-Louis said in a telephone interview. “It’s like building a bridge to nowhere.”

Jean-Louis, a Chesapeake developer, and a foundation from Illinois are teaming up to build a technical school near the orphanage to help some of the kids learn a trade. Among other things, students at the school will learn about tropical agriculture and how to run a business.

“There is no way we can afford to send them all to college,” said Gilbert “Chip” Wirth, the president of a local real estate development company.

Jean-Louis said the school – which will be called Sant Teknik McKenna in honor of one of its largest benefactors, The Mc­Kenna Foundation – should open in fall 2013.

“If we turn these kids out” without a skill, “we’ve almost done a disservice,” said Wirth, who also serves as the president of the Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation – a nonprofit founded 10 years ago in Virginia to help fund the orphanage.

When Jean-Louis started the orphanage in 2000, he wasn’t thinking long-term. The orphanage was little more than a personal mission to save a handful of kids.

The son of a poor farmer, he was able to finish high school and attend Virginia Tech only with the help of others. In his case, it was the Xaverian Brothers, an order of Catholic laymen.

After graduating in 1994 with an associate’s degree, Jean-Louis returned to Haiti and started to work as a translator for the United Nations. Unfulfilled by that work, he decided to open an orphanage in a house owned by the Catholic bishop of Hinche. The number of children grew quickly.

“I started with four, and two years later, it had grown to 25,” Jean-Louis said.

Enter the Diocese of Richmond, which had previously worked with the Diocese of Hinche.

In 2002, representatives from four Catholic churches in Hampton Roads formed the Maison Fortuné Orphanage Foundation. They traveled to Hinche and helped Jean-Louis purchase a 4-acre campus, fix up the property’s run-down buildings and start an elementary school.

“I couldn’t do this without the help of the people from Chesapeake,” said Jean-Louis. “Without them, there is no way we could afford all of this. We rely on them for everything.”

The foundation, which is formally owned by the bishop of the Diocese of Richmond, has raised about $3 million for the orphanage over the past 10 years, according to Wirth.

The foundation was created by members of three Chesapeake Catholic churches – Prince of Peace; St. Stephen, Martyr; and Church of St. Thérèse – and St. Mark’s in Virginia Beach.

In 2008, Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School in Virginia Beach also became a so-called “founding member.”
Wirth attributes the orphanage’s explosive growth to Haiti’s weak economy, the earthquake that devastated the country in 2010, and Jean-Louis’ big heart.

“Lefort and his wife don’t know how to say no,” said Wirth, a member of Prince of Peace in Chesapeake. “We used to get into huge arguments with Lefort. We’d cap it at 50 and, all of the sudden, there would be 52.”

After the earthquake, the orphanage’s population boomed. Additional space was rented, and the number of residents went from 150 to 250 almost overnight.

“Kids would just hop on buses and end up in Hinche,” said Wirth.

So far, one resident of Maison Fortuné has graduated from high school. Five more are expected to finish this summer.

Thanks to the help of private donors, the orphanage’s first graduate now attends Old Dominion University.
When not studying business administration and English, Jean-Rene Clerveaux regularly volunteers at an area soup kitchen and dines with the foundation’s executive director, Art Mowbray.

“If the orphanage didn’t exist, I don’t know where my life would be,” said Clerveaux, who almost dropped out of school nine years ago before he met Jean-Louis.

For some old friends in Haiti, the situation is much different.

“They are not doing anything,” he said. “They don’t have any money. … They are just sitting there. Walking around on the streets. Doing nothing.”

Growing up, Clerveaux, 29, never envisioned attending school in the United States. Just being able to go to college in Haiti is a long shot for most Haitians, he said.

While he is enjoying his time at Old Dominion, Clerveaux said, he has no desire to stay in Virginia.

“Without question, I’m going back to the orphanage,” said Clerveaux, who plans to work with Jean-Louis to keep expanding it.

“I can’t stay here. My country needs me,” he said. “My country needs more well-educated people.”
Scott Daugherty, 757-222-5221, scott.daugherty@pilotonline.com