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Nativity Catholic Church in Burke is donating a record $719,290 to support housing, health care, education and clean-water projects for vulnerable families in Haiti, Honduras and Jamaica.
The contribution, raised through the church’s Operation Starfish campaign, is the largest gift in Nativity’s 27-year partnership with Food For The Poor. Parish leaders and members announced the donation during an online gathering Thursday.
“Thank you for being there in these troubled places among the poorest of the poor in our world and in the human family and lifting them up to a new dignity and a better way of living,” said the Very Reverend Monsignor Robert C. Cilinski.
Food For The Poor President and CEO Ed Raine called the donation a remarkable moment and thanked the parish for continuing to support Haiti during a period of severe turmoil.
New homes and services in Haiti
The gift will help build Nativity’s 15th village in Haiti. Nativity Village at Bois-Louroux will give families furnished two-bedroom homes with water and sanitation, while the community will receive solar-powered streetlights.
Bois-Louroux lies between Grand-Bassin and Les Perches in Haiti’s Nord-Est department. Residents largely survive by growing small amounts of peanuts and cassava and cutting wood to produce charcoal.
Many families cannot afford to cultivate more of the surrounding land. Their current homes, built from wooden slabs covered in dried mud, offer limited protection from heavy rain and strong winds.
Other Haiti projects financed by the donation include birthing kits, a generator for New Hope Hospital and a water-purification system in Bondeau. Funding also will support operations and midwife training at St. Anthony Clinic in Cap-Haitien.
Scholarships will assist three schools serving Nativity Village communities near Cap-Haitien: Ecole Communautaire Emmanuel de Chastenoye, Ecole Notre Dame de la Nativite de Prolonge and Ecole Communautaire St. Pierre de Madras.
That portion of the gift will cover student meals, employee salaries and operating costs, helping make education available to low-income families in Madras, Plaine du Nord and Fort Saint Michel. The support is expected to benefit 595 community members.
Clinics planned in Honduras
Three Honduran communities—San Juan, Guaimaca and Monteverde—will receive new health clinics to replace overcrowded and badly deteriorated facilities.
The existing buildings have cracked walls, leaking roofs, damaged windows and doors, faulty electrical systems and rodent infestations. Each replacement clinic will contain two examination rooms, an observation room, a waiting area, a pharmacy, four restrooms and storage space.
The church’s contribution also will provide medicine for El Colirio Clinic, another Honduran facility that Nativity funded in 2024.
In Jamaica, the campaign will pay tuition and living expenses for medical students, including one attending the University of the West Indies and a recent graduate beginning the transition to residency.
A campaign approaching $10 million
Operation Starfish began in 1998 with the late Father Richard Martin, who died in 2014. While walking his dog, Pete, the night before Lent, Martin considered whether parishioners might give up small weekly extras—such as french fries or an additional pizza topping—and donate the savings.
The congregation raised more than $67,000 in response. Nativity then partnered with Food For The Poor to construct 27 homes in Haiti and formally launched Operation Starfish the following year.
Over 27 years, Nativity parishioners and supporters have contributed more than $9.8 million in cash and over $3 million in goods for children and families in need.
“I remember when Father Martin first began this adventure and enterprise of caring for the poor in Haiti,” Cilinski said. “I’ve witnessed firsthand the generosity of the community of Nativity and how it has grown.”