Don Cohan is a volunteer at Solar Cookers International in midtown Sacramento. He’s packing each solar cooker with instructions especially for Haiti.
Don: They’re in French. It tells them to use a dark pot with a lid.
Rene: This one’s ready to go.
Rene Hamlin, who works at the non-profit, says solar cooking was introduced to Haiti about 10 years ago. But then came the earthquake.
Rene: There was a warehouse of solar ovens, and a warehouse collapsed and those ovens were destroyed.
So the organization is donating 200 solar cookers made of cardboard and reflective foil. On one of Haiti’s reliably sunny days, a solar cooker can get food hotter than boiling, pasteurize water and bypass Haiti’s dependence on charcoal.
Rene: They adapted to it and found that it was viable to their way of life and the types of food they cook.
Sacramento’s donation is getting free shipping from Miami to Haiti on a container ship with other aid partners. The solar cookers will arrive in Haiti in about a month.