Nonprofit honoring teen killed in Haiti opens
Be Like Brit Foundation will aid Haitian community.
DELRAY BEACH — Thursday was the seven-year anniversary of the day Len Gengel lost his daughter Britney, a Lynn University student killed in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
But it’s not the only anniversary Gengel observes this month.
It’s been four years since an orphanage was built in an impoverished area of the Caribbean country in honor of Britney. And Gengel will likely celebrate another anniversary one year from now — the opening of a Delray Beach branch of a nonprofit created in Britney’s memory, the Be Like Brit Foundation.
“It’s a tough time of year,” Gengel said Thursday.
Britney Gengel, 19, was among four Lynn University students and two faculty members killed after the massive earthquake destroyed much of the capital city of Port-Au-Prince on Jan. 12, 2010.
Gengel was initially misinformed amid the chaos and told his daughter had survived the earthquake, he recalled.
“To lose your daughter twice in 48 hours is unfath- omable,” he said.
So Gengel and his wife, Cherylann, clung to the last messages they exchanged with their 19-year-old daughter. She told them she wanted to build an orphanage for the underprivileged children she’d encountered in Haiti.
She never carried out that mission, but four years later a weather-proof, non-adoptive orphanage in the shape of a “B” was built in Grand Goave, Haiti.
Brit’s Home, as it’s called, houses 33 boys and 33 girls, many o f whom a re t r u e orphans whose parents died. Brit’s Home also employs more than 100 native Haitians as caregivers and teachers.
The Be Like Brit Foundation is headquartered in Massachusetts, where the Gengels live, but for the past year they’ve searched southern Palm Beach Count y for a location for the local branch of the nonprofit.
“Brit loved Delray Beach,” said Gengel, who visits Haiti at least 25 times a year and wi l l v i s i t D e l r a y o n c e a month.
G e n g e l f o u n d a wa r e - house - s t yl e o f f i c e s pac e with room to store collected goods, west of Swinton Avenue and south of Atlantic Avenue at 288 SE 2nd Ave., within walking distance of Del r ay ’s d ownt own a n d largely Haitian-American residential areas.
“We’re building relationships with our local Haitian community,” Gengel said Thursday, when the nonprofit celebrated the official opening of the local branch.
The Delray Beach office will collect donations and train caregivers and teachers who are brought to the United States from Haiti. The local office will also serve as a liaison between the nonprofit and nearby universities, where Gengel hopes the orphaned children at Brit’s Home will eventually attend.
S a i d G e n ge l : “We f e e l complete carrying out Brit’s vision.”