A Hole in the Roof Foundation

On Thursday, July 6, 2023, Chris Harris - investment banker, dad, and long-time competitive swimmer - will attempt a solo, ultra-marathon swim around Manhattan. It will benefit three very important charities: + POOL, Have Faith Haiti and Worldwide Orphans.

The swim will cover a distance of 28.5 miles and is one of the most grueling and challenging - but also one of the most exhilarating and iconic - tests any competitive swimmer can attempt. The race will begin in Battery Park City at 9:30 am ET and will last an entire day as he makes his way up the East River, across the Harlem River and down the Hudson. This swim is well-known to swimmers across the world as it comprises one of three legs of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming (the other two are the English Channel and Catalina Channel).

Chris' lifetime passion for swimming and desire to make a positive impact on society has led him to take on this incredible challenge. The charitable partners he has chosen for this swim serve an important mission in their own right but also form deeply personal connections for him.

Why Have Faith Haiti

Chris’ mother, Guerda Harris (nee Marie-Jose Guerda Edeline), was born and raised in Haiti and was orphaned as a teenager. Through sheer providence and the courage and charity of people around her, she was given the tools to build a successful life and given safe passage and guardianship in the US.

Have Faith Haiti is a non-profit organization that provides education, healthcare, food, and other resources to children and families in some of the most impoverished areas of Haiti. The organization's mission is to break the cycle of poverty and give people the tools they need to create a brighter future for themselves and their communities. https://havefaithhaiti.org/

** if you'd like to support our ongoing safety efforts, please click here.**

Rapid fire gunshots echoed through the air, waking Have Faith Haiti’s 100 children and staff at 3 a.m. on the morning of Monday, April 24.

The lawlessness and gang violence that dominates Haiti’s capital city has reached its hilly suburbs. Haiti is in crisis, and the chaos is knocking on the door of the orphanage and school, run by author and philanthropist Mitch Albom since the devastating earthquake of 2010.

Following emergency instructions, we stayed low and away from the windows, and remained in lockdown for the rest of the day.

By 7, news of the escalation’s peak would make the rounds in WhatsApp threads and panicked texts: a crowd burned 13 suspected gangsters to death in a gruesome outburst of vigilante violence. Just half-a-mile from our grounds.

Haiti is in crisis.

Armed with machetes, bottles, and rocks, residents in the hilly suburbs of Haiti’s capital fought back against encroaching gangs throughout Tuesday, as the orphanage remained on lockdown. Sleep would not come again for 24 hours, but the bullets did. Thankfully, emergency procedures kept the children and staff who live, learn, play and work at Have Faith Haiti indoors safe — but only as safe as current conditions allow.

By Wednesday, a panicked phone call to Mitch Albom in the U.S. announced that a gang member had trespassed onto the property. The belief would prove to be unfounded, but the fear remains. What would happen if it were true?

Haiti is in crisis. And it’s in our neighborhood — the one we moved to last year for safety and growth. A neighborhood that has largely avoided the gang-fueled violence that has been consuming the capital and surrounding areas since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

Change can happen in an instant, and it has. Our ability to continue investing in the lives of our Haitian children is at risk and our safety plans have accelerated.

We need to immediately build a “safe house” by converting the top floor of a building into a bulletproof space with stocked supplies. We need security cameras and floodlights to illuminate nearly 7 acres of property to alert us to armed trespassers. And we need to hire more trained and armed security guards.

These threats are not going away. We must find a way to better secure our grounds so we can keep our children and staff safe and continue to fulfill our mission and vision to bring hope, leadership, and generational change to Haiti through the children we serve.

Have Faith Haiti provides safety, nourishment, education, and opportunity for Haiti’s impoverished children and orphans. We provide a loving home in Port-au-Prince where children can thrive personally, academically, and spiritually. After graduating from our bilingual academy, our children have the opportunity to attend college in the U.S. and return home as changemakers and leaders in the Haitian community. This fall, we’ll have eleven children attending college in the United States and one, our oldest, beginning medical school at Michigan State University. Have Faith Haiti is a project of the nonprofit organization, A Hole in the Roof Foundation.

This is hope for Haiti, a nation in crisis.

**If you need to give offline, checks may be sent to Have Faith Haiti Mission c/o A Hole in the Roof Foundation / 29836 Telegraph Road / Southfield, MI 48034 with “safe house” in memo line. For institutional giving, DAFs, and more questions, visit havefaithhaiti.org