Five Oaks in Pioneer Press

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Here's an article from Friday's edition of the Pioneer Press.

Woodbury church celebrates Haitian outreach

Pioneer Press (Updated: 10/29/2009 11:45:53 PM CDT)

A Woodbury church last weekend celebrated the grand opening of an orphanage and school in Haiti — which the church helped pay for.

Five Oaks Community Church raised $160,000 to help build All God's Children Orphanage and School in Fedja, which is in southern Haiti.

A total of about $1 million was raised for the project, including money and in-kind contributions from a national church group and the United Nations.

Since 2005, about 120 members of Five Oaks church have flown to Haiti at their own expense to work on the building, according to Deb Carr, an administrative assistant at the church.

The orphanage houses 52 children, infants through teenagers. It has bedrooms, a kitchen, toilets and showers.

It replaced a dirt-floor shack, Carr said. "They really had nothing."

In the same building is a school, now attended by 200 children from the orphanage and neighboring areas.

— Bob Shaw