St. John's thanked for Haitian donation

A Newfoundland woman who runs an orphanage in Haiti was in St. John's Monday to thank the city for helping her organization rebuild from a devastating earthquake in January.

Last winter, St. John's city council donated $50,000 to help repair the orphanage where Karen Huxter lives and works in Deschappelles, Haiti, which was badly damaged on Jan. 12.

Huxter, the founder and director of the Hands Across the Sea orphanage, was surprisedthat councillors stood up and applauded when sheattendedthecouncil meetingon Monday.

"I came in here to say a private thank you to the city council for the donation, for putting their trust in me, and then to see that standing ovation I was really blown out of the water," she said.

Huxter said the money has helped the organization about 40 kilometres outside Port-au-Prince start to return to normal.

"We've done some repairs on our administration building. So, now we have a lot more work to do on that because it took a lot of structural damage," Huxter said who added that her organization is doing better than many others.

"We have a project at the school where it got damaged; the roof has to be repaired. We've got a number of other projects as we see how far the money goes."

She said Port-au-Prince is still in shambles more than eight months after the earthquake.