Community Care
Support, fellowship, and solidarity with Port-au-Prince’s most marginalized.
The Heartline Community Care team was established in response to the direction of Jesus in Matthew 25:35-40: to feed the hungry, clothe the stranger, and visit the sick and imprisoned.
This Haitian-led team extends relationship and care to inmates at local prisons, aging adults, children with special needs, and so many more.
Community Care Initiatives
Prison Outreach
Haiti’s penal system is the most congested of any country in the world, with occupancy rates above 280% at times.
The vast majority of incarcerated Haitians have not actually been convicted of a crime, but are imprisoned during lengthy pretrial detention, frequently for years. Severe overcrowding, malnutrition, and preventable diseases mean many Haitians die in prison while waiting to see a judge.
We’re grateful to have relationships with two different prisons and visit them each week. The team brings bread for physical hunger – and companionship, mentorship, and prayer for spiritual and emotional hunger.
Bakery
The Heartline Bakery provides jobs and vocational training to previously unemployed men.
Open six days a week, we use over 500 pounds of flour each day to make delicious bread – selling baked goods to the wider community and supplying food for all of our Community Care team’s operations.
Mephibosheth House
In Haiti, children with disabilities face a unique struggle. Their families can experience stigma and ridicule from their community, and parents frequently relinquish these kids to orphanages or hide them away at home, excluding them from participating in school, church, or community life.
Every week, the Heartline team brings food and community to Mephibosheth House, a home for children with disabilities of all kinds. They stick around for several hours to spend valuable time with the kids and offer them connection to their community: playing, singing worship songs together, and praying as a group.
In 2024, the church Mephibosheth House was attached to was burned down in a gang attack, and the children had to leave. But that didn’t stop the team. They continue to travel and meet those kids in a new location, spending time in community together.
Family Assistance
One of our lesser-known programs at Heartline is called Family Assistance.
Through this program, we provide cash support to families in our community, in times of urgent need; these funds go toward rent payments, food, funeral costs, medical expenses – sometimes sensitive, always personal.
So we don’t share much about them. But it’s a crucial part of our operation in Haiti, and the need is growing amidst Haiti’s gang war.
Savings Group
Many Haitians struggle to maintain savings to cover large expenses when they arise. Even Haitians who have decent jobs lack a financial safety net. After all, most wages here barely cover a person’s basic needs.
That’s how Savings Group started. Initially a small gathering of a few conscientious Heartline staffers, Savings Group has grown to be 58 strong, spread across five cohorts.
Each week, Savings Group members gather to learn about finances and contribute to a fund that provides loans to members when unexpected expenses arise. Now, combined with their Heartline wages (which are high by Haiti’s standards), members have built a financial cushion of their own – communally, without relying on foreigners or NGOs.
