By FireRescue1 Staff
NEW YORK — A group of FDNY firefighters are going to Haiti to build a school for orphans.
NY Daily News reported that firefighter Weaver Debe, who is from Haiti, is bringing 15 other firefighters home with him to help a nonprofit organization build a school for 600 children.
Debe and his colleagues will be working with HEART 9/11, a group that aims to help communities in need with the compassion the world showed to New York after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Along with the firefighters, Debe is bringing along union workers from the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and two retired police officers.
“We’re going to be working long, hard days,” Debe said. “But it’s great to travel and work with firefighters and police officers — they know how to focus and get things done, and the ironworkers and carpenters have the special skills we need.”
Debe’s parents brought him and his six siblings to the U.S. when he was a young boy.
“This was during a time of turmoil and political upheaval in Haiti, and my parents were really worried about us staying there, especially about what kind of an education we would get,” Debe said. “They chose to bring us here, to give us better opportunities.”
However, his desire to help means more to him than his history with Haiti. Debe got married three days before the 9/11 attacks. After seeing what happened on TV, he left his honeymoon, flew from the Cayman Islands to Miami and rented a car to drive to New York so he could help.
“It was really hard. We had lost so many, and among those were some who I’d been very close to, a few who had been at my wedding just days before,” Debe said.
When Debe heard about HEART 9/11, he knew he had to help.
“We’re going to hit the ground running and do all the work we can. It’s tremendously rewarding to get in there and get the job done,” he said.