Georgia State Senator honors Los Angeles-based Scientology Disaster Response Team for Haiti service

| Los Angeles, California 28 February 2010 |

In Los Angeles on Saturday, February 28, 2010, Georgia State Senator Donzella James presented Georgia State Resolution SR998 to the Scientology Volunteer Ministers corps for “selfless service to the nation of Haiti,” at a meeting of Haiti volunteers at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International in Hollywood.

Georgia State Senator Donzella James presented Georgia State Resolution SR998 to the Scientology Volunteer Ministers corps
Senator James acknowledged the Volunteer Ministers recently returned from disaster relief service in Haiti. “On January 12th the Earth opened up and swallowed Port-au-Prince and other parts of Haiti. I have been to Haiti and I saw the poverty. I thought nothing could be worse. But you helped when it was even worse than I could ever imagine. You did what you could, unselfishly.”

Some 250 Volunteer Ministers have rotated through Haiti, with 100 currently on the ground, providing logistics support for medical teams in Port-au-Prince General Hospital and the University of Miami Hospital tent.

Scientology Volunteer Minister Ayal Lindeman
Scientology Volunteer Minister Ayal Lindeman, also a licensed practical nurse and emergency medical technician, was the backbone of the Haiti relief action. A veteran of ten disasters, including Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks and Hurricanes Charley, Katrina and Rita, his work organizing the care of the patients at Port-au-Prince General Hospital saved countless lives. Speaking to the assembled Volunteer Ministers, he reminded the Haiti veterans that the job has only started.

Registered Nurse Kimberly Williams, co-owner of Hill Street Community Wellness Center in Los Angeles, wanted to go to Haiti, so when she heard the Church of Scientology was transporting medical personnel, she signed on and left January 21 on a Church-sponsored charter. In Haiti she worked in a clinic near the Presidential Palace, assisting in operations including amputations and other lifesaving procedures and provided urgently needed medical care to more than 400 patients each day.

The international director of the Scientology Volunteer Ministers corps, Ms. Maria Reyher, announced the next phase of Scientology Haiti Disaster Response—a new base in Port-au-Prince that will enable the volunteers to work throughout the rainy season and will include classrooms for seminars, workshops and courses to train first responders in police, military and humanitarian organizations in disaster preparedness.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers corps is an embracive program of the Church of Scientology that provides community service, disaster relief and emergency response. Created more than thirty years ago by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard, the program has expanded to 203,000 Volunteer Ministers worldwide who have served at 185 worst-case disaster sites.