Zillah Woman Survives Earthquake, Starts Orphanage
Michele Deardorff
Michele Deardorff is a teacher with no borders.
The 2003 Zillah high school grad dedicates her life to teaching, and is currently a 3rd grade teacher in Haiti.
Everyday she sees the extreme poverty lining the streets-
"People say Haiti is a 5th world country because the difference between a first world county and a third world country and thats the difference you see between a third world country and Haiti."
Deardoff moved to Haiti three years ago- a few months later the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake hit Port-au-Prince killing hundreds of thousands of people.
"When you felt the second aftershock that was when everything fell. I saw a huge plume of smoke coming up and you just heard screaming."
Thousands of miles away, her mother heard the news of the quake.
She describes waiting to hear from Michele, as the longest hour of her life.
"We had a message- we are all okay- I remember those words," says Leslie Deardorff.
After seeing the devastation from the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Michele was inspired to help orphan children especially those whose family members had died in the earthquake.
"After the earthquake and we had to experience everything we had to go back to the US because our school was temporarily closed and we said this is the time to start this is the time to start that organization,"
Michele and two coworkers started H.E.R.O or housing education and rehabilitation of orphans, the organization has already built a 12 child orphanage
Michelle says when she sees the children's faces and how far they have come- thats when she knows shes doing something right.
"We want to teach the kids to teach others and to spread the values that we teach them and to go out and what we do for them- them to do to others."