News Release

Building H.O.P.E. - Kokosing Building Orphanage in Haiti

Kokosing raising $500,000 for Building H.O.P.E. Contribution updates, progress pictures...

HAITIAN ORPHANAGE THAT PROVIDES AND EDUCATES

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Plans for the New H.O.P.E. Orphanage

Keep following the progress!

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HAITIAN ORPHANAGE THAT PROVIDES AND EDUCATES

Greg and Cathie Benson from Fredericktown, Ohio, and Tim and Toby Banks from Lexington, Ohio, serve God in Haiti through Christian Services International. Greg and Cathie are the Haiti Field Directors and Tim and Toby run H.O.P.E. Orphanage. H.O.P.E. presently has 20 young girls between the ages of 3 and 10 years. Toby and Tim are the legal guardians of each orphan that they take care of and none of these orphans have parents. These girls are being educated to stay in Haiti and help their country be a better place to live. They are not being held for adoption in the U.S. Many of the facilities to support their missions in Haiti were damaged in the earthquake including the orphanage. A need was identified to build a new orphanage. Greg Benson and Brian Burgett, CEO of The Kokosing Group of Fredericktown, Ohio, began an email correspondence about Kokosing’s involvement in the construction efforts. Greg and Brian grew up only a few miles apart and now God was placing them in each other’s lives. Additionally, The Kokosing Group has been a supporter of the orphanage and Brian’s daughter is a close friend of Tim and Toby Banks and served on a mission trip during the original orphanage construction.
As the potential project developed, a need was identified for some engineering support to design a new orphanage. The Kokosing Group considered sending a structural engineer who had recently retired from The Kokosing Group to assess the conditions in Haiti and the previous construction methods. It turned out that an engineer from Galion, Ohio, had already been to Haiti and performed an assessment. He had a previous working relationship with The Kokosing Group and had worked on Kokosing projects in the past. It’s amazing how God placed all of these relationships together and placed everyone in close proximity. Within weeks of the disaster, a team was already in place working on designing a new orphanage, setting a construction schedule, organizing volunteer construction workers and fundraising.
We need your help!
Would you like to contribute to God’s work in Haiti? The Kokosing Group is matching up to $250,000 in gifts towards the construction of the new H.O.P.E. orphanage.

You can donate in the following ways*:

1) Send a check to made payable to CSI Ministries to:
          Kokosing Construction Company, Inc.   Attn: Brooke Hoeflich
          P.O. Box 226
          Fredericktown, OH 43019
(Please designate BUILDING H.O.P.E. in the memo line in order to get your donation matched by The Kokosing Group!)

2) Go online to www.csiministries.org and follow the link "Donate Securely" on the left. (Make sure you designate it as part of BUILDING H.O.P.E. in order to get your donation matched by The Kokosing Group!)

3) Send a check made payable to CSI Ministries to:
          CSI Ministries Headquarters
          1714 W. Royale Drive
          Muncie, IN 47304
(Please designate BUILDING H.O.P.E. in the memo line in order to get your donation matched by The Kokosing Group!)

* Contributions to CSI are tax-exempt from federal income tax.

Please pass this information along to your friends, family, other churches and businesses!
For information about the BUILDING H.O.P.E. Project, including an up-to-date total of how much has been raised and construction progress, visit kokosing.biz and follow the link. If you have questions please contact Matt Wushinske mrw@kokosing.biz or Lori Gillett lmg2@wabashsteel.biz or 740-694-6315.

Thank you,
The Burgett Family &

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Construction Update

- by Brian Burgett

4/22/10 Progress is moving along really well. This week the Kokosing representatives on site are Denny Tuttle and Curt Yost. They have been joined by another mission work team that I don’t have any information on right now and the Haitian workers that have been working since the start of the project. We are almost finished with the foundations. These were designed much stronger than has been typical in Haiti and therefore entailed more work. About another week and a half should finish the top half of the grade beam and put most of the two feet of fill in the building in preparation for the first floor pour. We have five cargo containers that are supposed to arrive into Port Au Prince on Tuesday. These contain the 60 tons of rebar that was donated by Gerdau Ameristeel. They also have the plywood, construction tools, a tractor with a loader and forks and various other items to be incorporated into the project. We have another cargo container in route coming from WACO equipment that has the shoring for the elevated slab pours. WACO (Dale Andressy is the owner) has donated this shoring material for the project as well as to help future projects. We continue to be very excited by the support of everyone and the progress of the project. Thanks to all of you.

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CONSTRUCTION UPDATE PICTURES