Haiti Ministry
The Haiti Committee of Saint Matthew Catholic Church exists to support, nurture, and educate the people of our sister parish in Gobert, Haiti. We seek to involve our parishioners and encourage them to share their resources to provide hope, health, and healing to the parishioners of Our Lady of Miracles. By sharing our common faith and Christian love, we hope to foster understanding, respect, and unity between our cultures.
Since 1995, the church of St. Matthew has been sending monthly collections to Our Lady of Miracles, our sister parish in Haiti, to support the day-to-day church operations. In April of 2002, our Pastoral Parish Council voted the Haiti mission as an official ministry at Saint Matthew. A fact-finding mission then traveled to Haiti in May 2003. When they witnessed the conditions in Gobert, the group was overwhelmed by the tremendous need.
Our largest annual appeal and fundraiser is Well Played: A Songwriters’ Night, which we have joyfully celebrated for the last 15 years. Thanks to a special push to complete the OLOM school, we saw record-shattering success in 2025 and were able to build new classrooms and add doors and windows to the school. We were joined by an exciting line up of country music songwriters – Bobby Tomberlin, Lance Miller, and Mark Narmore. They collectively have written songs for some of the biggest names in country music including Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Luke Bryan, Cody Johnson, Thomas Rhett, Reba McEntire, Rodney Atkins and more! Learn more about the event by clicking below.
Each spring, we also hold our Spring of Hope campaign allowing us to make a greater impact with Our Lady of Miracles and the surrounding area in terms or clean water, medical care, education, and spiritual opportunities.
Did you know…
Over the years, our Haiti Ministry has focused on supporting the people of Gobert in four main areas: Education, Infrastructure, Medical, and Spiritual. Take a look at how our committee is able to provide support in these ways. You might be surprised to learn just how much we are able to provide.
Our Lady of Miracles School in Gobert, Haiti is supported by St. Matthew Church and School. OLOM school teaches Pre-K through 12th grade and educates 400 students. They employ 1 principal, 30 teachers and 9 additional support workers. The school year starts in September and ends in June. If they are able, OLOM school parents pay $10 per month for tuition fees. This helps cover school operational costs such as chalk, paper, pens, etc…
Collectively our church and school donate $25,200 a year for the principal and teachers’ salaries. $12,600 of that total is raised by SMS students each school year. Additionally, SMS creates awareness about our brothers and sisters in Haiti through a dedicated school bulletin board, Haiti mission member presentations, and student lead projects. We are grateful to all the SMS students and their families for their amazing attention to awareness and support of Haiti. SMS raises funds throughout the year in various ways.
Haiti Market – Art, jewelry and food are sold by a variety vendors in the school gym. All vendor fees go to support the SMS Haiti Ministry. It’s a held in the fall and great way to start shopping for Christmas!
Silver Coins for Change (Penny Drive) – A longstanding and highly engaging tradition, SMS holds this annual fundraiser during Catholic Schools week in January. Rebranded Silver Coins for Change this year, SMS students bring change to school for five days in a row. It’s boys vs girls and whoever collects the most wins this fiercely competitive competition. For the second straight year, the school children raised more than $6,000 in their 2026 campaign.
Summer Challenge – Students give one day in the summer to raising funds for Haiti. The ideas range from selling lemonade to mowing a lawn to selling created artwork. This helps the students directly connect to this cause by supporting OLOM school with their hard work.
Grocery Store Rewards Program – A perfect way for you to get involved! Add Saint Matthew School as your beneficiary partner when you shop at Kroger. It is absolutely free to you. Just add your phone number at checkout and a percentage of your purchase comes back to SMS as FREE MONEY which we use to support the OLOM school! Click here for simple set-up instructions.
DID YOU KNOW… Only a short time ago, the parish of Our Lady of Miracles in Gobert, Haiti had no access to fresh water and no electricity. Through the generous donations from Saint Matthew Parish, we have been able to install a well, a water purification system, solar panels and inverters for electricity, a diesel-powered generator to run larger items such as the well pump, and countless bio-sand and Sawyer cartridge water filters to the surrounding community.
The critical importance of these items can not be overstated as they provide the most important factor in human health – clean water. Due to the generous support of our Saint Matthew parishioners, past projects include the installation of a new reverse osmosis water treatment system which will offer clean water not only to the parish and school, but also the surrounding village.
In addition to the water and electricity systems, we have been able to help OLOM expand the school, expand the medical clinic, build a bakery/kitchen and numerous other projects, including a new Starlink internet service at the church to greatly improve communication and information access for the community. In the past year, we have funded additional classrooms for the school, so that all grades will have space within the school, as well as funded the doors and windows for the entire school. Future goals include adding additional space for our medical clinic.
All of these projects have had returns well beyond the investments provided. The people of Gobert and the committee thank you for your continued support of the Haiti Ministry through our ‘Well Played’ Songwriter’s night, this Spring of Hope appeal, and general donations.
Receiving medical care for those that live in Gobert has always been a challenge. The nearest clinic is more than 30 minutes away and the nearest hospital is more than 90 minutes away by motorcycle. Providing medical care to the Our Lady of Miracles community and greater Gobert has always been a priority for Saint Matthew Parrish as part of our Haiti ministry. Initially in 2004 we provided a yearly medical missions and this continued through 2018 when political unrest prevented that from continuing. Fortunately, Saint Matthew Parish laid a strong foundation for an ongoing relationship with our Lady of Miracles in order to continue to expand medical services provided.
Dr. Librice Prevalis is native to Gobert, and he has served this community as a physician for nearly 20 years. With the generous support of Saint Matthew Parrish he has been able to continue and expand the medical capacity in Gobert. Currently he has a small clinic with several exam rooms and a limited pharmacy on the Our Lady of Miracles compound. He is assisted by two nurses, four community health workers, and one lab technician. In the clinic, they see on average of 300 patients each month. Each community health worker visits about 40 homes per week. During these visits, they check to make sure patients are taking medications appropriately, drinking clean water, check blood sugar levels, and take blood pressures. In addition, there are special programs that are run out of the clinic such as a feeding programs for malnourished infants and children and an immunization program. This small team routinely educates the people of the community on clean water, sanitation, hygiene, hypertension, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses. Saint Matthew’s long term commitment continues to make a difference in healthcare for the people of Gobert.
In addition to his duties as pastor of Our Lady of Miracles Catholic Church, did you know that Father Floreal also serves the people of multiple pastoral centers beyond easy travel to Gobert? These pastoral centers are served by the chapels of St. Joseph in Lumé, St. Thérèse in Pigeotte, and St. Augustine in Carrefour Roger. In addition to saying as many as three Masses per week at OLOM in Gobert, Father travels to these small chapels to say Mass, too. He also performs the Sacraments of Baptism and First Communion at each once a year. Annual celebrations are held at each of the chapels to introduce the faith to non-parishioners and deepen the sense of community.
While the spirit of the faithful is strong, the physical structures used by the chapels are very humble. The Lumé Chapel, which also supports and houses a school for 314 students, suffers from a damaged roof, while the Carrefour Roger congregation currently gathers under a small, makeshift shed. Every Sunday, the communities transform these humble spaces into sanctuaries for worship and celebration.
Despite the challenges of these remote locations, Father and the OLOM community continues to support these outlying chapels prioritizing the spiritual and educational needs of these communities. Your support of the Saint Matthew Haiti Ministry helps Father Floreal travel to and serve these small remote chapels. We thank you for your generous support of our mission and the people of Gobert.
See your work in action…
Follow Our Lady of Miracles on Facebook. See the joy radiating through their parish as they pray and worship together as a community. All this is made possible through your generous support.
For more Information: Barney Schulte at ben87ce@yahoo.com
2014 photography by Nick Adams
