Haitian nuns visit N.B. to learn more about Mountie

Two Haitian nuns are visiting New Brunswick this week to learn more about the man whose name will be on their new school.

Sgt. Mark Gallagher, a New Brunswick RCMP officer, died in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

He was in Haiti on a nine-month United Nations mission to train police officers there.

Ever since his death, volunteers including Eugene Lewis have been raising money and collecting supplies to build a vocational school in Haiti in Gallagher's honour.

"It's to be put on top of a mountain where these nuns have a huge organization," Lewis said. "The school is almost completed in terms of its actual construction but we need everything for that school."

Lewis says many of the goods have been donated or sold at discount prices but the total value is $250,000.

"We have to send down all the equipment for carpentry, for masonry, for secretarial programs, floor tiling and essentially what I've been doing is assembling all of the equipment for that school."

Nuns visiting

Lewis has been showing off all of the equipment this week to two nuns from Haiti who will be running the new school.

Sister Giselle Chapuron, the school's educational supervisor, is in New Brunswick to meet the donors and to spend time with Mark Gallagher's widow.

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Chapuron says New Brunswick has been very generous to the people of Haiti.

Richard Blaquiere, president of the group Friends of Mark Gallagher, says it has taken four years to get to this point.

"We have $1.2 million and the school is almost built, we're keeping our fingers crossed," Blaquiere said.

"Once the container arrives in Haiti, we're going to put together another building and if everything goes the way it's supposed to, we're going to have our first students in October." 

Chapuron will be at the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick in Dieppe on Thursday to sign an agreement with the college to train Haitian instructors and to help develop the curriculum.