Donna Cooper’s story of wanting to join the Scientology Volunteer Ministers Haiti relief effort appeared in her hometown paper, the Pahrump Valley Times , in January.
Donna has returned from Haiti but is planning to go back in April with her 17-year-old daughter.
Donna, mother of 8 and soon to be great grandmother, retires in 16 days. She is a veteran of the Scientology Disaster Response in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Donna mainly worked at the Volunteer Ministers compound at the Port-au-Prince Airport, where she cooked for those who were working in the hospitals.
“The doctors were great,” she said. “They slept on the ground in sleeping bags just like the rest of us. They didn’t ask for special favors. They were friendly, cheerful, and never complained about anything. We didn’t have a kitchen—just a couple of two-burner hotplates. One day I grabbed two big bags of rice, 33 cans of Healthy Choice soup, four cans of peas and cooked them all together. Everyone loved it. People were so easy to please. I did laundry too, especially for the doctors and nurses, because they simply had no time to do it themselves.”
