The staff at Outreach International has a customary role: helping those living in impoverished nations learn to help themselves to a better way of life. But, a devastating earthquake two weeks ago, in one of the organization's hubs in Haiti, has left the staff scrambling in a new role: offering disaster- relief assistance. The focus is on helping staff, students and families attending the schools closest to Port au Prince, the capitol. Those buildings are among 90 schools they operate throughout Haiti, the poorest nation of the Western Hemisphere.

"We're not traditionally a first-responder," Andrew Betts, director of communications and marketing at Outreach International, said of the organization's newest role. Nevertheless, in the last two weeks, the organization has created and initiated a disaster-relief plan aimed at assisting the teachers, students and their families, with the necessities of daily survival.

"How do you send your kid to school if there's no food or health care?" Betts asked.

Outreach's unassuming world headquarters is located on the second-story of a bank building on the historic Independence square. Staff credits the internet and a website with spreading the word and expanding the list of donors.

Eventually, in Haiti, Outreach plans to put money into a disaster-recovery based program, aimed at re-building schools. In fact, the group has launched a capital campaign for re-building infrastructure. Even with this help, and that of relief organizations throughout the world that have been stationed there since the quake, the need for assistance is overwhelming.

"It (Haiti) was a poor country before," he said, adding that Port au Prince was built for a population of 5,000, but, many more people make it their home.

Betts said the buildings in Haiti were built to withstand hurricanes, the natural force that most frequently wrecks havoc in Haiti. The concrete buildings often extend upward several stories in order to accommodate more people in a smaller living space. The school that's near Porte au Prince, in Petion Ville, a three-story building, readily crumbled during the quake, trapping many people beneath the rubble.

Since the quake, Outreach has requested donations on their website, www.outreach-international.org and on newspaper advertisements. In addition, Kansas City area television news coverage of the organization's efforts have increased publicity of the need. The result, so far, is $225,000 in monetary donations. Most of that money has been used to purchase sheets for make-shift tents and basic food and medical supplies, Betts said.

Although it's been two weeks since the quake first struck, the 16-member Outreach staff still is unsure of the quake's impact. They haven't been able to locate all of the staff and students of their schools throughout Haiti. Betts said many families have fled the area in search of food, water and medical help. In fact, news from the region has been so scarce that, an initial email from a staff member was the first and only correspondence for several days following the quake. So unsure is the staff that they recently sent an employee to the region.

Matthew Bolton, named Outreach's Haiti emergency coordinator, will assess the damage and loss of life. A school in Petion Ville, Outreach's largest school, and the one which staff believe may have sustained the most damage in the quake, will be among his stops.

The following is an excerpt, from the Outreach website, in which a high-school aged student chronicled his experience when the school building fell with he and several classmates still inside.

"I was in class when I heard a great noise like a clap of thunder, and the school began to tremble violently. I ran, but the school broke down around me. Fortunately, God protected me under a great piece of flagstone concrete. Part of it was on my back and the other on my feet, and I was in a lot of pain. I felt alone, but had faith that I was not going to die, in spite of being under the rubble. I laid between two of my friends, but they both died during the night. When I heard voices above me, I kept shouting, “Save Me!” trying to hang on through the night.

"The next day around 9:50, I was saved from the rubble. I could not walk. Someone carried me in their arms to get help. They brought me to a hospital for x-rays, and someone gave me a drink.

"Now I sleep on the ground among 2600 others, placed in make-shift tents, some made of carboard and plastic. I still cannot walk well."

Outreach staff still are unsure of the boy's diagnosis.

Beyond the immediate relief effort, Outreach plans to help re-build with the same philosophy that guide's the group's efforts in all of the 14 countries it serves: "sustainable good." The slogan, listed on the organization's website and all promotional materials, refers to a mindset that stems from the old saying "helping people to help themselves."

Kenneth McLaughlin, director of corporate development, explained it this way: "It's a long-term community development philosophy that's been with us from the beginning," he said. Outreach's history began with Charles Neff, a member of the nearby, then-RLDS Church, now known as Community of Christ. The church's world headquarters also is located in Independence. However, Outreach is not affiliated with the church, though the church donates annually to the cause.

"It's long-term, comprehensive development in communities...where we teach them to find the resources for their needs. I totally believe if you're going to alleviate poverty, you have to do it totally sustainable--everything we do is sustainable and practical."

Often, the resources poverty-stricken nations seek are what Americans would consider basic needs, such as clean water and adequate nutrition. McLaughlin said that poverty like that lived by the Haitians, and other countries Outreach serves, is incomprehensible to Americans.

"It's a poverty that affects the soul," he said. "It impacts how people live on a day-to-day basis. What we try to do is show...hope."

McLaughlin said Neff, Outreach's founder, who died several years ago, would readily recognize the group he founded, even in the wake of the group's new role responding to catastrophic disaster.

"We're so true to our founding values," he said, "I think he'd be delighted."