Emmy-winning actress Patricia Arquette paid a visit to 30 students and their welding teacher Monday at Robert Morgan Educational Center in southwest Miami-Dade to thank them for their labor of love.
For the past three weeks, the students have been welding sheets of steel to construct heavy-duty doors. Those doors will be affixed to 54 metal shipping containers, which will be transformed into homes. Soon 54 Haitian families will have a much more stable roof over their heads.
Spearheading this housing project is the "Give Love" foundation founded by Arquette and fashion designer Rosetta Getty. The charitable organization is focused on working collaboratively with displaced communities in Haiti to resettle homeless families from the chaotic environment of the tent cities.
Arquette had just returned from a two week trip from Port-au-Prince with building and sanitation experts and described the deplorable living conditions there.
"They're rebuilding the same way their homes were built before the earthquake and it still looks like the earthquake just hit," Arquette recalled.
These welding students are a part of Arquette's pilot project to develop sustainable housing and sanitation systems following the January earthquake.
"They're supposed to be able to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes and everything that could be pretty much thrown in the direction of Haiti," said student David Hunsberger. "I used to work in an office and now that I'm welding I really feel like this is what I'm supposed to be doing."
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Arquette provided photos to NBC Miami of some shipping containers that are ready to have the metal doors installed. The units under construction now will provide immediate relief for displaced families who are currently camped at the L'Athletique d'Haiti soccer field in Cite Soleil.
"I brought sanitation experts from all over the world, we got a successful model on the ground," Arquette said.
The "Give Love" foundation reached out to the American Welding Society to help launch this pilot project. AWS's Ross Hancock says the welders at Robert Morgan Educational Center are also helping build a model curriculum that he aims to implement in 100 welding classes across the country by the end of the year.
