CANFIELD — Father Terrence Hazel and three parishioners of St. Michael Parish here received an unexpected surprise last month while on a trip to Haiti organized by the interdenominational relief agency Food for the Poor.

The group took part in the release of four prisoners from a jail in Cap-Haitien and also served meals to 563 prisoners. According to Food for the Poor, people are jailed in Haiti for years for minor crimes such as stealing food and the only way for them to be released is paying a fine, which is sometimes as low as $20.

“Most of the prisoners are there for stealing chickens and other food because they are starving,” said Denise Firestone of St. Michael’s.

She said the group from St. Michael fed the prisoners rice, beans and chicken, which Food for the Poor organizers said was like a Thanksgiving meal. Firestone said the jail conditions are inhumane, with 16 to 30 prisoners stacked on cots in a 16-foot by 16-foot cell. She said they are allowed out for just five minutes per day, which includes shower time.

“Of course, Haiti has no running water so ‘shower’ is a loose term. But the food was served in foam containers with just enough for the prisoners in a particular cell. The containers were filthy. We pushed it through a small opening in the cell so we did not even see their faces. Just arms reaching out,” Firestone said.

“We treat animals better in the United States,” said fellow parishioner Terri Stupka.

Maxine Gordon, who also made the Nov. 9-13 trip, said women, men and children all are housed at the same facility but in separate cells. She said the prisoners would reach their arms out of their cells as the volunteers walked by, simply asking for human contact.

“There were flies all over the prison and it smelled awful. We were told the people in charge cleaned it because they knew we were coming. I can’t imagine what it looked like before,” Gordon said.

Stupka said the group released four men from the prison, with the release being organized by Food for the Poor. She said the organization tries to release prisoners twice a year — at Lent and Christmas — but facilitated an early release effort while the St. Michael group was there.

“We don’t know what took place behind the scenes to make it happen and we didn’t see a lot of the prison operations, but the prisoners we released were smiling from ear to ear. We washed their feet and gave them new shoes as a symbolic gesture of a new life,” Stupka said.

Father Hazel said this trip to Haiti was his fourth since 2000, but it was the first time he was involved in a prisoner release. He said the group did not know about the release until just before they arrived at the prison.

“Food for the Poor sets the itinerary for groups of volunteers who go to Haiti. It’s different every time,” he said.

However, one stop that volunteers from St. Michael Parish always make is to an orphanage in Santo (just outside Port Au Prince) called Home of the Little Children of Jesus, which houses 120 children from 5 to 15 years of age with physical and mental handicaps. The parish “adopted” the orphanage in 2000 after Father Hazel made his first trip to Haiti following a presentation by a fellow priest who had gone there.

After that first trip, Father Hazel said he had been sharing his experiences in Haiti with the parish council when it was suggested that St. Michael “twin” with a parish there. He immediately contacted Food for the Poor, which suggested the orphanage instead. He said the parish council supported the idea 100 percent and the orphanage has been the parish’s beneficiary for nearly 10 years now. The pastor said one church envelope per month is collected for the orphanage.

None of the three St. Michael parishioners had ever been to Haiti before, but they all said they would go back if given the opportunity. Stupka said she planned to go four or five years ago, but the country was going through a period of political unrest so the trip was canceled. She said she wanted to see the orphanage the parish supports, which was the original intent of their trip.

“I wanted to do something more than put money in the collection basket. The prisoner release was a surprise and made the trip more meaningful. It was definitely an eye-opening experience,” Stupka said.

Gordon said she recently retired and was looking for an opportunity to go to Haiti.

“You cannot imagine what a third-world country is like until you see it,” she said.

Firestone said the people in Haiti who are well-off live in cinder block sheds and may have a solar-powered light on their street. She said most live in tin shacks or on top of garbage piles, with no running water, electricity or sanitation.

“The people there would give their right arm to live in what we refer to as slums here in the United States,” Firestone said.

Stupka said she felt guilty coming home and enjoying her Thanksgiving dinner after seeing so much poverty in Haiti. She said Food for the Poor feeds 15,000 people per day at one food center six days per week. The meal consists of chicken, rice and beans and it is served in buckets that look like one-gallon ice cream containers, which feeds a family of eight to 10 people.

“For many, that is their only meal of the day,” Stupka said.

Firestone said she was unable to make the trip to Haiti last time Father Hazel went because her children were too young.

“It took me a long time to stop thinking about the people there and I still think about it daily. It pulls at your heart and swirls around in your mind,” she said.

Father Hazel said the children dropped off at the orphanage are there because their families do not have the financial means to take care of them.

“Haiti is probably the only place in the world where kids are climbing over the [orphanage] wall to get in rather than get out, because they know they will be taken care of at the orphanage,” Father Hazel said.

He said in addition to St. Michael’s work with the Home of the Little Children of Jesus, the parish has contributed money to build about a dozen houses in Haiti in the past nine years.

“A 12-foot by 12-foot concrete home costs $2,600 to build. For another $500, they can have a toilet installed,” Father Hazel said.

He praised Food for the Poor, which helps feed millions of people each year in 17 countries. Ninety-six percent of all donations goes directly toward hunger relief and other humanitarian efforts, he noted.

“Despite their extreme poverty, the people in Haiti are very loving and we always had a big crowd following us everywhere we went. It is hard to believe there is that much poverty 200 miles off the coast of Florida,” he added.

Marly Kosinski, a journalist working in Warren, freelances for the Catholic Exponent