CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — Petit Bourg du Borgne, tucked into Haiti’s mountainous northern region, is a remote village that has found supporters among Clarksvillians.
The village is home to 65,000 villagers, many of whom are impoverished, and suffers from flooding during the rainy season, as well as waterborne illnesses such as cholera and malaria. The nearest hospital is four hours away.
Villagers depend on the services of St. Jules Clinic, a local outpost that means the difference between life and death for those experiencing complications from childbirth, machete injuries or simple infections.
From 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 19, St. Jules Clinic will receive donations from guests who attend an art-filled fundraiser at the Downtown Artists Co-op (DAC) at 96 Franklin Street.
Dozens of area artists have gifted artworks to be hung in the gallery, which attendees will receive in exchange for donations. Most of these pieces will have a suggested $20 donation, but a few larger works will have a suggested donation of $50. All funds will go to support St. Jules Clinic.
The event’s organizers are Billy Renkl, professor of illustration and drawing at Austin Peay State University, and his son, Will Renkl, a Clarksville Academy student. Will came up with the idea of hosting a benefit for St. Jules Clinic when a school club required some volunteer hours of him.
“The community there is really poor,” Will explains. “I learned that some of the people there earn only $85 per year. Not a lot of people there can afford health care, and people need medical assistance. Everybody deserves to live a healthy life.”
Billy and Will hope to raise enough money through the DAC fundraiser to pay for two weeks of the clinic’s operating costs. The medical clinic’s staff includes a nurse, a part-time doctor, a pharmacy technician, two lab technicians, a cashier and a housecleaner. The costs for salaries, plus medicine, is $2,000 per month.
Will has faith that Clarksville’s artists, and their fans, will create a successful event to benefit the clinic. Like his father, his mother, Susan Bryant, is also a professor for APSU’s art department. She teaches photography.
“This town has a lot of great artists and people who are interested in supporting artists,” Will says. “It will be nice to see what other artists make (besides my mom and dad). My parents have a lot of friends who are artists and they helped find people to donate artworks.”
Billy and Will learned about the needs of St. Jules Clinic through attending Immaculate Conception Catholic Church here. Another parishioner, Dr. Tom Grabenstein, and his wife, Kit, have been organizing local support for the clinic, through the church, for 22 years.
To learn more about the St. Jules Clinic visit www.stjuleshaiti.com.
