So you want to help the devastated people of Haiti, you really do, but you don't know where to go. Or maybe you're just too lazy to bring your canned food, bottled water, or powdered milk to a drop-off site. Then the Yellow Cab relief drive, no pun intended, is for you.
Just call 954-777-7777, and a cabbie will come to your door, pick up your donated food, and take it to Food for the Poor.
What's really neat about this effort is it's all about Haitians helping Haitians: About 90 percent of South Florida's taxi drivers are Haitian, and all of them seem to have family members caught up in the chaos of post-earthquake Haiti.
"Seven people from my family died, my cousin, my friend died, everybody die, " cabbie Andrel Estimable said.
His fellow driver, Boniface Beaubrun, said he still doesn't know if his family in Port-au-Prince survived. "Until I find somebody, someone who can tell me what happened, I can't even sleep because I keep thinking about them," Beaubrun said before heading to the airport to pick up a fare.
One common theme among the drivers, who seem to spend all day talking about the earthquake, is that they can't even watch the television coverage because it's too painful to see the images of total destruction, their people lying dead in the streets, begging for food and water. So the idea of picking up food for their country has a natural appeal.
"They're very happy to pitch in and help their homeland, " said Brad Bargman of Yellow Cab. "Everybody wants to help."
With more than 500 cars, if each cab made a food delivery to Food for the Poor, they'd make quite a contribution. If you'd like to take advantage of the cab driver house call service, call Yellow Cab, and have your canned meat, canned fish, water, and powdered or canned milk ready. Those are the items Food for the Poor says it needs the most.
