Haiti School Named for 12-Year-Old South Florida Girl

6th grader working to build schools, homes in Haiti

Rachel Wheeler remembers what the Leogane school used to look like.

"Garbage," the 12-year-old South Florida girl said, "it didn’t even look like a school."

The elementary school in the seaside town was ripped apart in Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake.

It was just "sheets being held up by metal and wood,” when she went in November, Wheeler said. Since then, she raised money through a non-profit organization called Food For the Poor to help build a school made of cement for 350 students, with ten classrooms.

The sixth grader doesn’t speak Creole, but found other ways to communicate with students she met on her March 24, 2012 weekend trip. It was her third visit to the beleaguered nation. "I’d just talk," she said, grinning. "They’d smile back."

The school is now named after her, as is a village of 27 two-room homes she helped raise money to build. Now she plans to return to help build 20 more houses for people in need.

"I can change somebody’s life,” she said.

To learn more about Rachel and Food for the Poor, click here.

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