Joe Garner of Rocky Mountain News has written a glowin' story on Susie Scott Krabacher a selfless Aspenite who has, for several years, championed the plight of Haiti's abused, homeless and orphaned children.
In the past decade, she has plunged into the chaos of the vilest slums in the Americas, taking charge of the abandoned children's unit in the city's main hospital and establishing a system of six schools and three orphanages.
"I see the faces of the people around me and I know I'm responsible for their safety, and that is fine," she said. "I know where I am going; I know why I was born."
She cradles dying children. She gives some of them the surname "Krabacher" or names them for friends in Aspen.
When supplies run low, she pulls out her credit card to foot the bills for educating her family of 2,000 children and caring for the 150 orphans, almost one-third of whom are severely handicapped or terminally ill.
"I don't think I was born with the fear gene," Krabacher said in a telephone interview from Port-au-Prince, where she was caught in the recent vortex of violence that racked the Caribbean country during the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A committed Christian, Krabacher said she has "a supernatural mandate to do what I do. God gives me the strength."
"Mama Blanche" is the name Port-au-Prince's starving, discarded children have given the luminous blonde from Aspen, ..." and she needs your help.
Despite two appearances on Oprah Winfrey's* show and a spread in People magazine, she still struggles to raise funds.
"Haiti is right on our doorstep, but no one ever seems to notice it," she said.
You can contribute though Foundation for Worldwide Mercy and Sharing, 201 W. Mill St., Suite 201, Aspen, CO 8161 or by clickin' on http://www.haitichildren.com/
There is somewhat a mystery involved in this story, because Susie Scott Krabacher was Playboy's Playmate of the month for May 1983, a fact that was mentioned in the story. However, there was no link to the picture from that May 1983 Playboy picturorial that Kevin Aylward displayed on his blurb to this story? Will we ever know?
*As I am continually hearin' that Oprah has a shit pot full of money, one does wonder why she doesn't throw a bit of it toward assistin' the Foundation for Worldwide Mercy and Sharing. The annual budget of the Foundation is only $340,000.00 so would seem that they do their best to do as much as possible with a very meager amount of money.
Posted by notGeorge at March 7, 2004 07:02 PM