LDS Church provides $4.25 million to Haiti

SALT

LAKE CITY — In the first month following Haiti's devastating Jan. 12

earthquake, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has

provided an estimated $4.25 million in assistance to date, with plans

for ongoing relief and recovery support for the ravaged Caribbean

nation.Relief efforts have included

providing food, relief supplies, shelters for displaced Haitians and

medical teams to treat the injured and ailing.

Recent

fatality estimates are between 170,000 and 230,000, with many times

more left homeless and destitute from the magnitude 7.0 quake.

To date, the LDS Church has shipped 28 truckloads of relief supplies — including nine air shipments — to Haiti.

Food

and relief supplies included 208,834 pounds of food, 16,070

water-filtration bottles, 12,840 hygiene kits, 11,760 blankets, 4,000

first-aid kits, 2,304 newborn kits, 1,696 tents, 1,319 tarps, 600

quilts and 25 medical supply modules.

Other items range from gas-powered cooking stoves to mattresses.

Additionally,

five truckloads of food and relief supplies were driven across the

island from the church's Caribbean area facilities in the neighboring

Dominican Republic, while local church leaders were authorized to use

fast-offering funds to purchase food and water in the first days

immediately after the quake.

Nine of

the Port-au-Prince Mormon meetinghouses have been used as emergency