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Community Environmental Center joins Queens Library for “Greening Libraries” Project
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

Weatherization Funding: Surviving by the Skin of Our Teeth, by Alexis Greene
Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Luck of the Irish – A Winner of the CEC Raffle
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Want to create jobs? Consider an Energy Corps, by Richard Cherry
Friday, December 9th, 2011

Community Environmental Center Installs Solar Thermal System at JCC on Staten Island
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Community Environmental Center Is LEED Consultant for LEED Gold Dormitory at Queens College
Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

The partnership between Green City Force and Community Environmental Center, by Lisbeth Shepherd
Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Helen M. Marshall, President of the Borough of Queens, Proclaims Tuesday, November 1, Community Environmental Center Weatherization Day
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Community Environmental Center receives Service Merit Award from NYSERDA
Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

Community Environmental Center to celebrate Weatherization Day November 1
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

Roger Lamour: Assistant Controller at CEC

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

The earthquake struck Haiti at 4:53:10 on Tuesday, January 12. In Port-au-Prince, the capital, buildings tumbled, burying people under immense, jagged stone and concrete hills. Massive cracks zigzagged through the buildings left standing, and the president’s three-story palace collapsed into one level, as though a monster had trod across its back.

Haiti would later estimate that more than 200,000 people died and 1.3 million were made homeless.

Roger Lamour, CEC’s assistant controller, was born and raised in Port-au-Prince. He learned about the earthquake when he reached his home in Pennsylvania that Tuesday evening and listened to a phone message from one of his brothers. “I said, ‘Oh, my lord. What are going to do?’” Roger recalls. He worried about an aunt, cousins, not to mention friends in Haiti. His wife, Carmel, was concerned about her brother, an engineer who works for the Haitian government.

“We were trying to call the first day—no answer,” says Roger. “We were trying to call all Wednesday. Finally my wife gets an answer: she lost her niece, and her niece has a son—the son died also. Both of them had come to the US last year and spent the whole summer with us. That was very, very sad.”

Carmel’s brother was luckier. Although both his legs were broken, he was transported to Santo Domingo for surgery and then to Florida for an additional operation. His wife and daughter also survived.

image from the website of chicagofree.info via Twitter

“I was crazy during those two days,” Roger remembers. “You are trying to find out about people, you don’t know where they are, if they died, and there is no way of communicating. I could not work.”

That is an extraordinary admission for Roger Lamour, who is usually observed working quietly and steadily in CEC’s fiscal office, often long after the business day has ended.

Steadiness and commitment have marked most of Roger’s career, beginning in 1982, when he moved from Haiti to the US.

Like so many Haitians, Roger’s family left the country during the reigns of the Duvalier dictators, father and son (“Papa Doc,” as he was called, died in 1971; “Baby Doc” was overthrown in 1986.) “Haiti with Duvalier was impossible,” says Roger. “If you had knowledge, you could not stay in Haiti. You had to leave.”

In the US he held a full-time job and also finished a B.B.A. degree at Baruch College. After that he worked in NYU Medical Center’s finance department and then for a photography agency. When the agency folded, Roger found a position at CEC.

It was April 1995, and CEC was in the early stages of its existence. “When I first started,” Roger recalls, “I did accounts, payroll—everything. Then the company grew, we hired more employees, and I began to do other things, too.

“I’ve seen so many changes at CEC. In terms of the fiscal department: more employees. And we need them, because we have so many programs. The WAP program, the ARRA program, and more fee-for-service jobs. We have an engineering department. When I started, we had no engineering division. We had 24 employees when I began. Now it’s like 80.”

His peak experience at CEC is an ongoing experience. “Being able to learn more of everything and learn from other people,” is how Roger describes it. “I love working for CEC. It’s my second home. Not everyone can say that about a company. I’m always happy. Anyone need something, I try to get it.”

When he is at his first home, in the Poconos, he relaxes and listens to music. He jogs and he loves to cook the vegetarian soups that are a particular favorite of his.

He has not tried to visit Haiti, which he last saw four years ago, when he went back for the funeral of an uncle. But he sends money on a monthly basis to people who are in desperate need.

“It’s quite a mess there,” he says. “People are sleeping outside, not in their houses.” Despite the funds that have poured in from all over the world, Roger reports, “nothing has been done,” largely because of an ineffective government. Charitable organizations that Roger trusts, such as the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, are now setting conditions for transmitting the monies they collect.

“Haiti is a very beautiful place,” says Roger. “But politically, it’s impossible.”

–A. Greene

If you are interested in sending a contribution to the victims of the Haiti earthquake, Roger recommends the following organizations.

Clinton Haiti Bush Fund

Yélehaiti – Rapper Wyclef Jean’s foundation

UNICEF

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