On Wednesday, we lost one of those rare beings we too seldom hear about. And the poor and the politically disenfranchised lost one of their most loving and fearless champions while the Heavens surely gained much more light and love.
On May 28, Father Gerard Jean-Juste allowed himself the privilege of resting after unceasingly working for more than three decades, shoulder to shoulder with the poorest of the poor in Haiti, seeking justice and basic human rights for his fellow Haitians. He was a most remarkable human being and one of the primary influences for initiating this website.
No, we never met. We never even spoke. I’ve only seen him in photos. I learned so much of him and his love for his people and his commitment to ending all this unnecessary hunger and poverty in Haiti through someone else I have never met yet, Margaret Trost. In emails with Margaret, I felt more and more the urgency to do something to counteract the unrelenting and unnecessary scourge of hunger visited on those who already had nothing to eat. And I began writing this blog, promoting simple ways to grow food, educating myself primarily to learn how to teach this information for that ’some day’ when I hoped I would have the privilege of traveling to Haiti and working with her and Fr. Gerry, as he was known.
I don’t recall now exactly how I found her on this amazing networking apparatus called the internet–some story about feeding hungry children in Haiti and how she found solace from the grief of losing her husband by working with a certain priest in one of the poorest parishes in Haiti. She saw the unrelenting hunger and heard Fr. Gerry’s idea of a soup kitchen or a “cantine” at the parish center. 
Margaret took all this in during her first visit, turning over in her mind what she personally could do to help him feed all these children whose one constant companion was an empty belly. She was, according to Fr. Jean-Juste, the miracle he prayed for.
She returned to the United States and started asking herself and family and friends “what if” we could make a difference and thus was born her foundation, now in its ninth year of feeding thousands of nutritious meals each week to the children of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. You can read the story of the What If? Foundation and order Margaret’s book On This Day Everyone Ate through my Amazon link on this website. (Any commissions earned revert to What If? Foundation.)
The Haitian Lawyers Association said of Father Jean-Juste: “This man has devoted all his life to the cause of the poor, the powerless, and the voiceless. He strived to do good, seek justice, and foster change in a world where injustice, poverty, racial discrimination, and inequality dominate many governments and institutions around the globe. Now that he is no longer with us, may his legacy serve as a moral compass to us all as we continue our journey in this world.”
Father Gerry: Your faith in your God brought Margaret to you to carry on. And her work with you ignited in me the desire to learn more, to do more, and I am not alone. You have inspired generations of the most neglected citizens of our hemisphere. You gave them hope. You helped them regain dignity. No, the work is far from over, but as you said “pitti pitti na rive” — little by little we will arrive.
Merci, ‘Pere’ Jean-Juste, for being among us, not only for the children of Haiti, but for the hungry child that lives in all of us. For as long as one child goes to bed hungry tonight, we are all hungry–for justice, for compassion, for morality and for love.
READERS: I thank you for taking the time today to donate to What If? Foundation. 
