'God plants ideas'

A Clayton woman's calling grows into schools, wells, an orphanage and more for Haiti's children

Helen Little's philosophy of life can be summed up in six words: "I listen. He instructs. It happens."

The "He" in question is God.

But Little, a 77-year-old Methodist from Clayton, is not the kind who hears booming voices from heaven. Instead, she said, "God plants ideas in your mind."

Over the past two decades, God has planted lots of ideas with her, and she has acted on all of them -- mostly in Haiti. Since she first visited the Caribbean nation in 1986, God has instructed her to raise money to build seven schools, four wells, one church and now an orphanage. And that's just the beginning.

Little has also felt called to deliver four 40-foot shipping containers to the impoverished island, each stacked high with furniture, clothes, gifts, school supplies and food.

The purpose of her largesse has been the children. Over the years, she has persuaded at least 100 North Carolinians to help Haitian children by paying for their school expenses, and she herself has been paying college tuition for a young man she has supported since he was a boy.

Recently, Little founded an orphanage for 10 children, ages 4 to 7, in a suburb outside the capital, Port-au-Prince. The Ryan Epps Home for Children in Haiti, named after a Clayton teen and a member of Little's church who died in a car crash in 2005, is housed in rented quarters. Little now wants to secure its future by buying land for the facility.

Unlike the schools or the wells, this project requires ongoing financial support. Feeding the children and paying the rent on the facility runs $1,100 a month, most of which is paid by members of Little's church, Horne Memorial United Methodist in downtown Clayton.

So Little is heading the campaign, which means, in her words, she has to "go beggin'."

She doesn't mind.

It keeps her busy.

It's for the children

Little's desire to help the children of Haiti stems from her religious faith and from her conviction that education is the only road out of poverty.

Little was born in Clayton, not far from her present home. Her parents farmed cotton, corn and tobacco. Like many people of the South, her parents had no money to send their daughter to college.

Instead, Little married and spent her adult years rearing three children.

Hers was a fairly ordinary life until her husband, Reuben, died in 1983. That year, a woman came to her church to talk about Haiti -- a place Little said she couldn't even identify on a map.

A widow at 53, Little needed to get involved in something. The program the woman represented, Mission to Haiti, sounded interesting.

It took two years before Little finally bought a plane ticket. When she arrived in Haiti, she was horrified by what she saw -- little boys walking naked in the countryside, families living in 12-foot-wide huts, women bathing in filthy water from a ditch.

It wasn't anything like the poverty in America.

"We don't have anything like that here," Little said. "It kept calling me back."

Since that first visit, she has flown to Haiti an average of twice a year, mostly with Mission to Haiti, a Christian nonprofit based in Miami that builds schools and provides medical care. She returned from her last trip -- her 41st -- earlier this month.

"She's Mother Teresa with an attitude," said Bill Nealey Sr., the founder of Mission for Haiti.

Though she spends most of the year back at home in Clayton, Little works on her Haiti projects year-round.

Each Saturday, she drives to local yard sales to pick up clothes and shoes for Haitian children, spending between $50 and $100 on dresses she buys for less than 50 cents each. She quit shopping thrift stores. Too expensive. And she snaps up every pair of shoes in sight.

Little loads up her spare bedrooms with her castoff treasures until there's no room left, then she packs it up and hauls it down to the Merci Center in Goldsboro -- the United Methodist Church's missions center. From there it is loaded onto a shipping container.

Persistence pays

And that's just one part of Little's mission.

Fundraising is the other. Little uses church stationery to write letters to corporate leaders and business people she hopes might help her out. When she realized a man at her church worked for S.T. Wooten, the highway construction company, she got him to ask his boss for donations.

Wooten obliged, and has contributed at least $10,000 to her efforts.

"She's very persistent, and that's how she gets the money," said Greg Nelson, vice president of the highway group at Wooten and a member of Horne Memorial.

Little sees small improvements in Haiti these days. The streets are cleaner. There are more stoplights at intersections. It's more common for children to attend school. But there's much more to be done -- and she's determined to do as much as she can for as long as she can.

Little believes the promise of Haiti lies in the generation now growing up.

"When they get old enough and become part of the leadership of Haiti -- that's when things will change."

But the island and its people have already changed Little.

"I've never given to Haiti as much as it's given to me," she said. "It put me busy."