Heat to commemorate 1-year anniversary of Haiti earthquake

MIAMI — In observance of the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010, the Miami HEAT will honor the victims and the survivors of the catastrophe during their road games against the Los Angeles Clippers on January 12 and the Denver Nuggets on January 13. During player warm ups, the Clippers and the Nuggets will join the HEAT in wearing special shooting shirts featuring a Save Haiti logo designed by South Florida artist, Romero Britto. In addition, The HEAT coaching staff and broadcasting team will wear special Haitiawareness ribbons. All coaches and bench staff for the Clippers and the Nuggets will also wear the Haiti awareness ribbons. When the HEAT returns to the AmericanAirlines Arena next week, the team will host a special presentation during their January 18 home game versus the Atlanta Hawks, which includes the following activities:

• HEAT players will wear the special shooting shirt during warm ups.

• The HEAT coaching staff and broadcasting team will wear the special Haiti awareness ribbons.

• The Miami HEAT Charitable Fund will present Project Medishare with a $25,000 check to assist with the on-going relief efforts. An initial $25,000 donation was personally presented to Project Medishare in Haiti in June 2010 by a Miami HEAT contingent, which included HEAT Head Coach Erik Spoelstra, HEAT greats Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway and HEAT Play-By-Play Announcer, Eric Reid.

• All Miami Hoops Gear locations—including the flagship store at AmericanAirlines Arena, the satellite store at Dolphin Mall and the online stores at MiamiHoopsGear.com and Facebook.com/MiamiHEAT—will sell special $5.00 rubber wristbands with proceeds benefiting Project Medishare, the non-profit organization founded by Dr. Barth Green and Dr. Arthur Fournier that provides life-saving medical care and community services to the people of Haiti.

• A public service announcement featuring Dwyane Wade will air urging the public to make a $5.00 donation to Project Medishare by texting the word SAVE to 501501.

Since the earthquake hit, Project Medishare has spent $11 million of the $13 million donated funds including a multi-million dollar donation from Carnival Corporation, which has helped to serve over 180,000 critically ill patients in Haiti. Project Medishare is the only hospital operating a pediatric and neonatal ICU in Haiti. It is the only facility in Haiti with a critical care/trauma unit and the only facility with a spinal cord injury unit. With over 200 employees, the Project Medishare hospital is completely staffed by Haitian workers. The Project Medishare facility has performed over 3,000 surgeries and has fitted over 200 amputees with prosthetic limbs. For more information, please visit projectmedishare.org.