By Godfrey Lee

A dinner was held on Oct. 19  in appreciation for the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority  — which recently donated a retired ambulance to be used in Haiti for emergency care. The donation came as a collaboration with several other Marin County Fire Departments.

The dinner was held at The Caribbean Spices, a Haitian restaurant on 819 4th Street in San Rafael. Jim Thelusma, a musician who lives in Marin, hosted the event and performed the music.

For six months, Thelusma met and planned with the Marin Central Fire Department — which voted unanimously to donate one of their fully loaded ambulances to Haiti.

Two other people who were influential in obtaining the ambulance are Sophis Dorsainvil, a resident of Oakland and manager of SophisMusic, and Claude Joseph, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of Connecticut. Joseph is also the founder of Those Angels, Inc., whose mission is “to build schools and to support the educational, cultural and social development of Haitian communities in Haiti and in the U.S.”

Matthew Cobb, Battalion Chief of the Central Marin Fire Dept. in Corte Madera, accepted a plaque appreciating the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority for their outstanding contribution for hope for Haiti 2019.

The ambulance was on display in front of the restaurant, and everyone attending the dinner took photos in front of it. Later on that night, the ambulance was taken to be stored in San Francisco for two month, while it awaits to be airlifted to Haiti by the United States Air Force .

Supporting partners include Project Reaching Hand, thoseangels.org and #Getdown4haiti. – with Noël Peterson-Luster, Chiraz Zapf, Shell X Jiang, and 19 others at Kentfield Fire Department Polling Place.

For more information and to donate to the ambulance, go to thoseangels.org

This article originally appeared in Oakland Post.

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