Tennis and art will help raise funds for students, women and artists in Haiti through two Vineyard groups this weekend. The Fish Farm for Haiti Project will host a tennis tournament at Farm Neck, Friday through Sunday, and the PeaceQuilts organization will host a show of quilts made in Haiti.
“Tennis is a way to bring people together and also do something for a good cause,” Mas Kimball, assistant pro at Farm Neck and organizer of the tournament, said in an interview earlier this week. “I did what I could to make the tournament a great success.”
The Fish Farm for Haiti Project has helped to create a tilapia fish farm at a school in Lilavois, Haiti. The project was started by Margaret Penicaud, who said the idea came out of the blue the first time she visited Haiti in 1998.
Mrs. Penicaud and others wanted to introduce more protein into the diets of students at the Daughters of Mary Queen Immaculate school, but the project grew to sponsoring students and funding art and cooking classes.
The tournament includes men, women and mixed doubles, and has 40 people signed up so far. Players donated $50 to participate in the tournament. “As time goes on hopefully it gets bigger,” Mr. Kimball said.
In the future, he hopes to bring in a silent auction to attract non-tennis players. The fish farm sustained minimal damages in the Jan. 12 earthquake; money raised from the tournament will go to school and medical supplies and rebuilding the school’s living quarters that were destroyed in the earthquake.
People can head up to Chilmark after the first day of the tournament Friday to attend the opening of the PeaceQuilts exhibit at the Bank of Martha’s Vineyard. The show will display quilts that were made by a group of talented quilters in Haiti, ranging in size and price.
“Our mission is to help them to get established, support them, mentor them in terms of developing quilting skills and business skills, until they can become an independent, self-managed group,” Jeanne Staples, director of the organization, told the Gazette this week.
Ms. Staples has been to Haiti twice since the earthquake, the last time this spring, and said it was much more horrendous than the media could show. “They were really traumatized at the end of March, but we could sense things were beginning to heal,” she said. “There was a little less rubble, a little more activity in the market place,” she said compared to the first time she went down in the winter.
Ms. Staples also said the quilts have been gaining fame within the art market and curatorial world; the project will begin partnering with the Fairwinds Trading Company this winter to establish a program with Macy’s.
The tennis tournament will be held at Farm Neck Golf Club June 25, 26 and 27. For more information and to make a donation visit fishfarmhait.org. The PeaceQuilts show opens tonight from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Bank of Martha’s Vineyard Chilmark branch on South Road. For more information or to purchase a quilt see haitipeacequilts.org.
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