This feels so right

Director of Internal Communications Cathy Kuehner, June 7, 2011: It's been 17 months since the earthquake in Haiti, and to a first-time visitor it is difficult to imagine what Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area looked like before the quake, and what it looks like today is too much to process. What is easy to see is why it is so right for Shenandoah University to do what it can to help one school rebuild. It cannot be over-stated that educating current and future generations of Haitian children will play a large part in this country's ultimate success. We may not see that success in our lifetime, but we have to believe it will happen.

Over the past three days, Shenandoah University President Tracy Fitzsimmons, Director of Physical Plant Gene Fisher, Winchester-based architect David Ganse, AIA, and Winchester-based engineer Jody Fox, PE, have put in long days, meeting with founder and principal of College Catherine Flon Willio Saint-Fort as well as administrators and teachers from the school. They've met with a local contractor and people who explained local building codes and government "norms" for construction. They have asked hard questions and intently listened.

College Catherine Flon (CCF) occupies four small plots of land all located along one road in Carrefour. Almost 5,000 students ranging in age from 3 to adult attend CCF. They used to attend school in respectable buildings; today classes are held in wood-framed structures covered in tarps.

Shenandoah University, which is committed to being a responsible neighbor in Winchester as well as places around the world, will help College Catherine Flon rebuild, because it is the right thing to do. Once you see the school, its dedicated administrators and faculty and most of all its students, you know it in your heart.