HRO Sets Goal of Lending Support to DR Community
By Caroline Stauffer

The Human Relief Organization (HRO), a Hampton-based nonprofit organization that delivers humanitarian assistance around the world by tapping into an extensive network of individual contributors and partner organizations, is developing a project to improve homes in the Dominican Republic. 

HRO is working with the Office of First Lady Margarita Cedeño de Fernandez to identify a Dominican community to assist - possibly a community where homes could be built to better withstand tropical storms and hurricanes. 

Amy Reineri, president of Casa Architecture, is designing a housing model for the project.  HRO commits to making culturally sensitive donations, and plans to assist in a way that best fulfills the local population's desires.  "I am interested in finding out what a middle class house in the DR is like," said Reineri. 

Once a model and a community have been identified, Reineri hopes to partner with local organizations and youth groups to begin assembling homes, and eventually to take advantage of Hampton Road's port location to arrange the shipment of a crate of assembled homes and or parts.    

HRO has previously made large shipments of supplies to Latin America.  In 2006, the organization flew a school bus converted into a mobile medical clinic to rural Guatemala by partnering with the Denton Program.  USAID, the Department of State and the Department of Defense work together to ship humanitarian aid around the world via the Denton Program.