Three hours before Britney Gengel died in the massive earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands in Haiti two years ago, she sent her family a text message expressing pure affection for the children she had met that morning while doing humanitarian work.
"They love us so much and everyone is so happy,'' the college student from Rutland, Mass., wrote. "They love what they have and they work so hard to get nowhere, yet they are all so appreciative. I want to move here and start an orphanage myself.''
Later that January day, Gengel lay trapped under the wreckage of a hillside hotel that had collapsed. Rescuers pulled at least 68 bodies, including Gengel's, out of the ruins.
With her last text message in mind, Gengel's family is now making it their mission to carry out her dream and aid children in this devastated island nation.
Leonard Gengel, Britney's father, and his 19-year-old son, Bernie, are following in her footsteps and spending the Christmas holiday here to finish building an elaborate orphanage on the country's western coast. The trip is Leonard Gengel's 20th this year.
"My wife and I will wrap our arms around that text message for the rest of our lives,'' Gengel said from the passenger seat of a maroon Mitsubishi taking him to the construction site. "The text message still resonates with us.''
The center they have in mind is a memorial of sorts, an homage not just to Gengel but also to the dozens of others who perished at the Hotel Montana.
The Haitian government estimates that at least 300,000 people died in the earthquake. Gengel was a 19-year-old sophomore at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., when she found her calling.
The communications major visited Haiti to hand out meals to children for Food for the Poor, a religious charity based in Coconut Creek, a Fort Lauderdale suburb.
"She fell in love with the children,'' said Leonard Gengel, a 51-year-old home builder. "She was consumed by what she saw and felt.''
Just hours before the magnitude-7 earthquake hit, Gengel sent the text message to her mother, Cherylann.
At first, school officials told the family that Gengel was missing. Later they said she was on a Florida-bound helicopter. Elated and relieved, the Gengels made their way to Fort Lauderdale to reunite with her. But they learned there that school officials had received incorrect information.
"It's unfathomable for a parent to lose a child twice in 36 hours,'' Gengel, his voice choked up, said as the car neared Grand Goave, the coastal town Gengel had planned to visit before she died.
On Wednesday, Gengel and his son landed in Haiti. They spoke of Britney in quivering voices and wore matching white Polo-style shirts with the name of the orphanage stitched across their chests: Be Like Brit.
Be Like Brit, they said, means lending a hand and looking out for the underdog.
With that in mind, the hilltop orphanage they are building, estimated to cost $1 million, will feature solar panels and earthquake-resistant walls, and a medical clinic. Family members and sympathetic strangers have donated as much as $800,000, Gengel said.
It is not clear yet where the children will come from, but Gengel said he wants the facility to house "true'' orphans, that is, children without both parents. It's possible the children could be selected from the homeless settlements that sprung up in the aftermath of the earthquake, he said.
The orphanage is due to open in 2013.
SOURCE: The Associated Press
Trenton Daniel
