Dearest family and friends, I am just hoping to reach out to you on behalf of the wonderful charity that is Shelterbox (http://shelterbox.org/ ), based not far from many of you in Cornwall.

ShelterBox responds instantly to disasters all around the world delivering aid as quickly as possible to the people who need it most.

It is an international disaster relief charity that delivers emergency shelter, warmth and dignity to people affected by disaster.

I am trying to raise as much money as I can in aid of the devastating recent disaster which has hit the beautiful island of Haiti this Tuesday, 12 January 2010.

Desperately poor, socially benighted and politically volatile, Haiti couldn't be less well equipped to organise a massive relief effort after an earthquake. The country lies in ruins. The death toll is already running high into thethousands , three million people will be affected, and the scale of the relief effort needs to be enormous in order to cope.

Shelter
At the heart of every ShelterBox is a ten-person tent. It is custom made for ShelterBox by Vango, one of the world’s leading tent manufacturers, and is designed to withstand extreme temperatures, high winds and heavy rainfall. Internally, each tent has privacy partitions that allow recipients to divide the space as they see fit.

A smile
Every box contains a children’s pack containing drawing books, crayons and pens. For children who have lost most, if not all,their possessions, these small gifts are treasured.

Warmth and protection
In addition to the tent, the boxes contain a range of other survival equipment including thermal blankets and insulated ground sheets, essential in areas where temperatures plummet at nightfall. Where malaria is prevalent mosquito nets are supplied, as well a life saving means of water purification. Water supplies often become contaminated after a major disaster, as infrastructure and sanitation systems are destroyed, this presents a secondary but no less dangerous threat to survivors than the initial disaster itself.

Each box costs an average of £490 including all materials, packing, storage and distribution to individual recipients worldwide. Based on six months use only this equates to 27 pence per person per day.

If at all possible it would be amazing if we could raise enough money between us to pay for one of these wonderful boxes.

Just £490...thats less than £1 each!!!!come on wonderful people...we can do this!!!

Thankyou so much for reading this...and please just give a little if you can!!

Lucy x x


Some first hand accounts of the devastation from the earthquake

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Haitians took recovery efforts into their own hands Thursday as aid workers trickled into the quake-battered capital where impassable roads, damaged docks and clogged airstrips slowed the arrival of critically needed assistance.

Using chisels, blowtorches and bare hands, one group of Haitians worked for 24 hours to free a man pinned under a collapsed school; still others -- possibly including students -- were trapped inside.

Across town, an 11-year-old girl pleaded for water and screamed in pain as a group of people painstakingly tried to lift a piece of metal off her right leg. They chose to try to free her themselves rather than wait hours for help from professional rescue workers on a neighboring hillside.

Those scenes of Haitians banding together to free their neighbors played out across the capital while the few rescue crews who managed to make it into the hillside city came face-to-face with the death and destruction caused by the massive quake

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