GONAIVES, HAITI — After Hurricane Jeanne in 2004, Hearts and Hands for Haiti, a tiny Raleigh-based charity, paid for the materials to help residents of the tiny farming community of Sous Raille rebuild their homes.
Now most of those homes are gone again.
Four tropical storms, ending with Hurricane Ike earlier this month, have raked Haiti this summer, bringing more misery to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
North Carolina has an unusually close relationship with Haiti. Hearts and Hands for Haiti is one of dozens of Triangle churches and aid groups that support missions in Haiti, including orphanages, schools and medical clinics, and this summer's storms have them scrambling to raise money and send relief, often to people and places they already know well.
"The people there are extremely resilient, and I know that, but I'm wiped out emotionally just hearing about it," Stan Wiebe, who along with his wife, Patty, run Hearts and Hands for Haiti out of their basement, said in an e-mail message Tuesday from the United States.
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