RI’s Moynihan Rejects Bob Kraft’s $100K Donation — Discusses on GoLocal LIVE
Wednesday, May 08, 2019
Few people turn Bob Kraft down — especially those running not-for-profits working to help educate students of Haiti, but Patrick Moynihan turned down the New EnglandPatriots owner’s offer of a $100,000 charitable gift
Moynihan for the past 23 years has been leading The Haitian Project, an innovative education program in Haiti that has had educated thousands of children that have gone on to attend college and help build a middle class in a country decimated by poverty.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTMoynihan said he could not accept a donation from a man who is tied to the sex trade and who refuses to accept responsibility. Haiti was once a hub of the sex trade industry and in the 1980s tens of thousands of Haitians died of complications tied to AIDS.
“We were offered by Dan Salera, who works with Mr. Kraft, $100,000 in support of our work in Haiti and unfortunately under the current conditions it was unacceptable for us to take," said Moynihan. "We are in the very direct business of educating men and women to go on to healthy productive lives, and the opposite that would be a life in prostitution or involved in the sex trade, and so given the current situation it was just not possible for us to accept that gift with a lack of clarity."
Moynihan explained his position in a 30-minute interview via Skype from Haiti with GoLocal’s CEO Josh Fenton on GoLocal LIVE on Tuesday.
Salerna is a Newburyport, MA-based consultant that advises Kraft of charitable giving.
“Well, you know I have been engaged in finding funds. I mean, without a doubt I am very proud to say that I have advocated, I'm a mendicant in that sense I begged for the money that we need in order to do the work that we are doing in Haiti where there are not the financial assets to provide education," said Moynihan. "So that's absolutely what I do is go out to find funds and I just think it's important to clarify that I have never knowingly taken money from anybody who has in my understanding been a scoundrel. The only scoundrel I actually know is myself -- I work every day to reform that you know and so I think it's important to understand that we're all sinners in need of God's mercy and redemption."
Moynihan said there are conditions in which he would accept a donation from Kraft in the future.
The Haitian Project was founded in the early 1980s by St. Joseph's Parish in Providence, "to provide humanitarian aid and relief to the people of Haiti. Louverture Cleary School began as a response to one of the greatest needs of Haiti: education. Once a school with a handful of students and big dreams for the future, Louverture Cleary School has now grown to feed, house, and educate 350 bright and enthusiastic students from the poorest neighborhoods of Haiti."
“Most important of that is that [Kraft] is yet to denounce prostitution and the sex trade you know and since he's left that sort of hanging,” said Moynihan a Brown University grad and the brother of Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan.
“To be very serious, there's nothing romantic there's nothing 'Pretty Woman' about prostitution in the sex trade and there's certainly nothing about the 'night' when you're talking about something happening in the broad daylight right in the midst of the public -- you know this is a shopping mall right? And the women performing it are expected to go from room to room like an assembly line. When you think about the gravity of the inhumanity of that there is no way with that out there and unaddressed that we could ever take these funds,” said Moynihan.
Moynihan condemned the actions of Kraft’s attorney William Burck and the culture of West Palm, Florida audits ties to the sex industry.
Efforts in Haiti
“I’m proud to say they [the students] come from very difficult backgrounds households — that are trying to survive on less than $1,000 a year per family and they themselves end up as professionals, accountants, working as teachers, lawyers, working in management and other activities all professionals earning $12,000 to $15,000 a year on average within two or three years of leaving University. And, we're very proud that ninety percent of our graduates just around ninety percent of our graduates have remained in Haiti and are working every day to improve the lives of others as well as their own families,” said Moynihan.
Learn More About The Haitian Project
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