Members of Pleasant Valley donated $70,000 in a special collection Sunday, January 17 to be wholly used for earthquake relief in Haiti. Donations, including some from the community, between that date and January 26 have pushed that total to $81,560.

On Tuesday, January 12, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti with a level of devastation unknown to the island nation even in the aftermath of hurricanes years before. As many as 200,000 are estimated dead and, as of this writing, hope is expiring for survivors still trapped in the wreckage of buildings in and around the city.

Help has been pouring in from the United States and other nations – and doubtless many of our members had already been contributing to those efforts as well.

PV elders, who decided to announce the special collection, have also chosen to publicize Pleasant Valley as a point in the Little Rock community where donations to assist in the recovery can be accepted.

Pleasant Valley has supported mission efforts for many years in Haiti, including Pacius Gueston (see links to pre-earthquake video here and article here ) and his wife Linda and Emmanuel Alexandre in Gonaives, and the Haiti Christian Development Project (HCDP - http://hcdp.net/), overseen by PV member and local cardiologist Dr. David Smith.

(See this link for a January 18 KTHV news story and video about the work of Harding University missionary-in-residence Oneal Tankersley, brother to PV member Dwane Tankersley.)

Tax-deductible contributions to the church for this effort will be used exclusively for earthquake relief in Haiti. They may be brought to the church office between 9:00am and 4:00pm weekdays.

For more information, please contact Roger Pritchett, Missions Minister at Pleasant Valley, at (501) 492-2723 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

You can read more about efforts to assist in the aftermath of the quake at http://www.christianchronicle.org/article2158974~.