Real Salt Lake player stepping up efforts to help Haitians

SALT LAKE CITY — Real Salt Lake midfielder Jean Alexandre thought first of his dad when he heard an earthquake had ripped through the Haiti homeland they left when he was 9.

His father was on a business trip to Port-au-Prince, the heart of the quake zone, to visit a small school — an education and training academy with about 40 students — that father and son support financially. It is located in their hometown of Verrettes, north of the capital. The school is one way Alexandre has chosen to help his homeland.

After his concern for his father, his next thoughts were for his much-loved "aunties" and cousins living right in the quake zone.

Alexandre, a first-round pick in the 2009 MLS SuperDraft, was in Argentina training when his mom called with news of the earthquake. Alexandre tried frantically to reach Haiti by telephone, but it would be several days before he got through to his family.

"I was so worried; it was so stressful," he told the Deseret News in a phone interview from Columbus, Ohio, where he was getting ready for practice Friday. As for the Argentina trip, post-quake: "I was going through the motions."

His dad, it turned out, had left Port-au-Prince for a different Haitian town the night before the earthquake. His other relatives were alive, but lost their homes and now live in tents. A cousin has described the country as "upside down," he said.

Alexandre helped RSL coordinate the shipment of soccer equipment and clothing to children at the academy, called Y-fo-Lov School. And he has for some time been sending money to those relatives still in Haiti. He has now stepped up the pace because the need has grown since the earthquake, he said. And now that the rainy season's coming, many Haitians are in renewed danger.

That ongoing sense of providing help is why the Alexandre men decided to sponsor a school, he said.

"We feel like one of the best ways to help is to give these kids an outlet and a way to leave Haiti. If they are successful, they can come back and do what we have done and help someone else," he said.

e-mail: Lois@desnews.com