18-January-2010

To: Staff Members, Students, Alumni, Alumni Club Leaders, and Friends of the University of Pennsylvania

Dear Friends,

As most of you know, the disastrous earthquake that hit Haiti caused great destruction and devastation.
Haiti, considered the poorest country in the Americas, does not have the resources or the ability to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. To date, there are over three million people affected and the death toll could be one of the highest caused by a natural disaster in modern history.

Our Dominican Penn and Wharton Alumni Club has already begun its efforts to help, but we need the support from our entire alumni network and friends. No single country, government, or international organization can manage this disaster alone; especially since air traffic and ground traffic are very limited due to the damaged infrastructure.

Although our efforts started immediately after the earthquake, we keep looking for better ways to make our contributions more effective. As you know, we started by focusing on providing safe drinking water to Haiti, but faced logistical challenges in delivering the much needed supplies quickly and safely.

Therefore, we decided to join the Save the Children Foundation, who already have an impressive warehouse facility set up in the Dominican Republic, as well as an efficient transportation system to deliver vital supplies to their Haitian team. Our joining efforts with the Save the Children Foundation makes our initiative much more efficient and far reaching. This does not diminish the task we have at hand, but it  allows each party to focus on its strengths. The DR Penn-Wharton Alumni Club Board will continue to review our plans to ensure optimal execution and results.

Monetary contributions continue to be the fastest and most practical way to help. Our funds will go directly to Save the Children Foundation to purchase what is most needed. Any donation, no matter how small, counts!

Donations can be made using credits cards by going to the button below:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=11172380

We will keep you updated of all the help our General Alumni Network managed to provide, and we ask that you please forward this to anyone and everyone that can help.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Ben-David Bonetti (C’08)                                                                   Fabian Mendy (WG’92)

Dominican Penn Alumni Club President                                                            Dominican Wharton Alumni Club President