One thing about Americans is they will give during a time of need. For the 9/11 tragedy, the Haiti earthquake, the Japanese tsunami – even in this era of hard economic times, Americans still are able to give to help others.
The downside is we often forget a tragedy once the next one hits.
After the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010, many celebrities offered their time and money to help. One, hip hop star Wyclef Jean, took it a bit further and even tried to run for president of his native country. His request was declined because he had not been a resident of the country for at least five years prior to the election.
Jean formed the charity Yele Haiti Foundation in 2005 and after the earthquake, the organization kicked into high gear. Jean asked for international aid for the country and raised over $16 million for Haiti relief.
But, what happened to all the money?
The New York Post reported last Sunday that less than one-third of the $16 million has actually been used for relief efforts. In the article titled “Questions Dog Wyclef’s Haiti Fund,” the authors Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein don’t suggest that Jean or anyone else with the charity embezzled funds, but rather question how the funds were distributed.
The 2010 tax filings of the charity show that $5.1 million were spent to deliver water, food, and other emergency relief efforts. Five contractors were given the monies with $353,983 going to P&A Construction, run by Jean’s brother-in-law Warnel Pierre.
Amisphere Farm Labor, Inc., based in Miami, received $1,008,000 and was listed as a “food distributor.” However, there seems to be no record of the company now and the head of it, Amsterly Pierre, bought three properties in Florida last year. In fact, the company never completed all the required paperwork for Florida businesses. When the address given was checked, it was a auto-repair shop in Miami.
Jean and many of the other Yele Haiti board members left the charity in the summer of 2010. Still Jean claims that Amisphere delivered almost 100,000 meals after the earthquake.
New Yele Haiti director Derek Johnson told the Post that “It’s a clean slate now.”