Pastor Fran Leeman from LifeSpring Community Church! He went on a series of mission trips in different areas of Haiti for several years until he felt the Lord calling him to pick one place and make it better.

Fun fact, we were entirely volunteer-run in the U.S. until 2017! (While we have had paid American staff in the intervening years, as of 2025 we are back being to a volunteer-run organization operating under the direction of the NLH board.) In Haiti, we have sixty staff members carrying out the mission and purpose of the organization.

Our American headquarters is in Plainfield, Illinois, and our Haitian headquarters is in the far western part of the southern peninsula of Haiti, in a town called Marfranc.

We are humbled to report we have helped 375 students receive free education! In Haiti, there is limited access to free public education, and tuition is a significant barrier for most families.

The Village of Hope is a residential home for at-risk children. In many cases, their families could no longer care for them, and the Village of Hope has provided a refuge with loving “mamas,” as well as a school with teachers sensitive to the children’s special needs. Twenty-four children have come through the Village of Hope campus. New Life for Haiti is currently meeting the needs for nineteen children living on-site.

We’re all about building hope for a sustainable future—it’s even in our mission statement! One practical way we do this is through our sustainable agriculture program, where we’ve taught hundreds of people how to plant, grow, and sell their own food and care for goats that provide supplemental income.

New Life for Haiti has built seven schools since our inception. Right now, we’re focused on maintaining the School of Hope, which serves students from prekindergarten through ninth grade.

Great question! Haiti doesn’t have states like the U.S., but they do have ten departments, similar to our understanding of states. We’re in the Grand Anse department.