BRATTLEBORO — Last month at the Riverside Industrial Center in Brattleboro, a group of Vermont Yankee employees and volunteers from Baptist Haiti Mission finished loading used office furniture into a Sea Land container for shipment to Haiti.
Entergy Vermont Yankee has been donating items deemed surplus, given the impending shutdown of the plant at the end of this year, to local nonprofit organizations, schools, and volunteer fire departments.
However, some items needed too much tender loving care to be of local value.
Doug Bruce, a Vermont Yankee employee who volunteers with Baptist Haiti Mission, suggested that even heavily used office furniture can make a significant and positive impact in Haiti.
The items are being donated for the express purpose of replacing termite-ridden wooden desks and cardboard storage in Haiti, which is still trying to recover from a series of natural disasters over the past few years.
Baptist Haiti Mission serves more than 350 churches and 300 schools in Haiti's mountainous regions, where most students sit on the ground and teachers store their papers in cardboard boxes.
The used office furniture from Vermont Yankee will be sent to schools so students have a stable work surface and teachers can properly store manuals, testing materials, and supplies off the ground and away from dampness and mold.