Student Feature
Goolsby was then introduced to the devastation that attacked all of her senses. Houses and
buildings in complete ruin. Bodies hanging out
of buildings. People sleeping in the streets, utterly terrified to return to their homes for fear
of another quake.
“We were just trying to help any way we could,”
Goolsby said. “The smell of death that everyone
talks about, you can’t wrap your mind around. …
It’s very distinctive. … It’s a smell that every time
I talk about it, I can almost taste.”
Goolsby’s group traveled around the city delivering supplies to makeshift hospitals and orphanages. But the gravity of the situation did not hit
them until they were returning home.
“It did not hit me until I was on the way back
(to Michigan),” Goolsby said. “We kind of
looked at each other and said, ‘What did we just
do?’ Anything could have happened. God is so
good, because whatever fear or trepidation was
there, He took it away.”
When they returned to Michigan, they also
realized they had to do more.
“A friend of mine who
is a flight attendant
called and said,‘Do
you see what’s going
on in Haiti? We’ve
got to do something.’
. . . I said,‘What?’”
Goolsby said the next goal was to supply tents
for 50 families. Although she had enough donations to buy the tents, delivering them to Haiti
proved to be costly. “We raised some money,
but it wasn’t nearly enough to help us,” she said.
Goolsby and Williams, because they could fly
at a reduced rate, decided to take turns to
personally deliver the tents to Haiti. Goolsby
delivered and erected six tents on her second
trip, including those donated by SHU’s Metro
Detroit Center.
“We took the larger tents first, and some of the
smaller tents next,” Goolsby said. “Forty-two
children are now not in the rain. I’m excited
about that, because it’s the rainy season over
there right now.”
She and Williams are planning more trips this
summer, with a goal of creating a tent city for
400 people she calls “The City of Hope.” The
tents cost $150 each, and they are looking for
a more efficient way to deliver them.
“If I can get them to Miami, I can get them
over by boat for about $200,” she said.
Oh, and by the way, she is doing all this while
still performing her duties as a wife and mother
and completing her bachelor’s degree in Professional Communication at SHU.
Right: Char Goolsby and friend Liscious Williams deliver tents and vital
supplies to survivors of the devastating earthquake in Haiti.
Below: As the tents arrived in Haiti to provide much needed shelter,
Char began her goal of creating the tent city she calls “The City of Hope.”
“Between what’s going on in my life, there’s
still work to be done,” said Goolsby, who has
plans of continuing on to graduate school one
day. “There are people a lot worse off than me.
Right now there are 400 people (in Haiti) who
are sleeping outside on sheets and curtains,
and I am living very well. … I really feel like this
is an opportunity to do (God’s) work. After
being over there, you just feel compelled to
do something.” u
Reflections Summer ’10
11