ATHENS — Like many Americans, Caroline Stout shed some heartfelt tears when she heard news of the recent earthquake and subsequent devastation in Haiti.

But for this Concord University senior who has spent considerable time in the impoverished Caribbean country during eight mission trips, the tears might have fallen just a little bit harder.

“It just broke my heart,” she said. “I just started crying, and I couldn't really understand it at first. Just to consider the death toll, because I know from being there that a lot of those houses were hardly stable enough to stand without an earthquake. Those people were struggling just to get by day-to-day before this. I heard someone put it that 'A country already on its knees has been knocked down once again', and that's exactly how it felt.”

After that initial feeling of shock and heartbreak wore off, though, Stout's compassionate nature kicked into full gear.

“My next instinct was to want to help in any way that I could, because I know there's going to be just so much need for assistance,” she said.

So, she met up with a group of fellow students who shared her concerns. After praying for the people of Haiti, Stout says they realized it was time to take action.

“We wanted to do something here on campus to get involved, and we knew people would want to help, but they probably just didn't know how,” she explained. “The idea of a basketball tournament evolved, because it was something we knew the college students would enjoy, and then we got the faculty involved, too, by planning a faculty tournament and a grand finale game between the faculty all-stars and the winning student team.”

That tournament, sponsored by Concord Students for Haiti Earthquake Relief, took place last night, in CU's Carter Center. Throughout an entertaining series of five-on-five, 15-minute games culminating in the final showdown between students and faculty, proceeds were raised to be donated to Randolph World Ministries, the organization with which Stout took her longest tenured mission trip to Haiti. Leaders of the ministry will use the money to purchase food, water and medical supplies to aid in the Haiti relief efforts.

“We just charged students $2 to play, and then a $1 admission fee, and we accepted donations as well,” said Stout. “We're collecting medical supplies, too, which we'll either give to Randolph World Ministries or take ourselves when my dad and I go to Haiti later this month.”

That trip, one of many the father-daughter team will have taken together to Haiti, was already planned prior to the powerful quake that struck the country on Jan. 12. Now, Stout, a biology pre-med major planning to become a medical missionary, says there is an even more dire need for any assistance the pair can offer.

“How could we not go now with the present situation?” she asked. “Honestly, I feel like once you go to a place like Haiti, I don't think anyone could just erase it from their minds. It's a sense of responsibility, not guilt, because I don't think it's right to do things because you feel guilty, but you have been enlightened, in a sense. Once you know how it is, you can't just turn your back on it.”

And Stout, an Alderson native who took her first mission trip to Haiti in 2005 with her dad, an emergency room physician, says it's more than just a country in ruins that she sees in her mind's eye when she thinks of the devastation that has ravaged the republic recently.

“It's an entire country of wonderful people who are nothing more or nothing less than you or I, and yet their situation is so much more heartbreaking,” she said. “I just feel like I have to go help them. It's what I've been called to do.”

That heartfelt compassion has been echoed, she says, by her classmates at Concord.

“It's been incredible,” she said. “Everyone has been so supportive of this tournament, and I can't even begin to count the number of students who have come up to ask what they could do to help. A variety of different campus organizations chipped in, and the faculty gave 100 percent support. It feels like our hearts are just knit together for this period of time for a common goal, and it's really awesome.”

As for Stout, her goal is to continue working towards a better life for the people of Haiti, a mission that has only become more difficult since the earthquake. Even if the country will never be entirely stable, she says, it's crucial for the Haitians she has come to know and love that people don't give up on the fight.

“I read a book that called it 'the long defeat,'” she said. “It's a battle that you keep fighting, not necessarily because you think you'll ever see the end of it or that you'll ever win, but you have to keep fighting because it's not worth the risk of giving up on the people who are losing now. You just have to keep fighting.”

o donate money or supplies to the Haiti relief efforts or to learn how else to help, contact the Mercer County American Red Cross, at (304) 327-5017, Heaven Sent Ministries, at (304) 425-7120, or other local charitable organizations.

— Contact CharLy Markwart at cmarkwart@ptonline.net.