Fara Café is a big friend of Austin Samaritans, and the folks at Fara Café tell us that their coffee is now for sale at several Austin area stores. We encourage folks to support Austin Samaritans by supporting Fara Café.

Look for delicious, Matagalpa, Nicaragua - grown Fara Café coffee for sale at:

• H-E-B
• Whole Foods
• Walgreens
• Other fine food stores

In light of the recent catastrophe in Haiti, Austin Samaritans has been prayerfully considering what, if any, our response might be. On the one hand, we have no established ties to programs in Haiti. On the other hand, our mission is to improve the human condition in God's larger world.

Those on the ground in Haiti are expressing an urgent need for medical supplies and equipment. Austin Samaritans has a warehouse of medical supplies and equipment ready for shipment. They have the need, we have the resources; it seems so simple. Of course, it is not that simple. Shipping items without a destination is folly and we had to find programs who expressed a need and people in Haiti willing to receive them. In other words, we needed to collaborate with churches, non-profits, and organizations of benevolence to ensure that our participation is indeed helping the intense suffering.

Austin Samaritans' Executive Director, John Doty MD, provides an overview of how we came to focus on a particular condition in a particular country, and outlines our strategy to provide significant return on donated funds by

• Collaborating with other like-minded non-profits to achieve greater returns
• Targeting an area where our efforts will be felt strongly
• Establishing a strategy for ongoing care and long-term effects