Lynn teenager takes Golden Rule to heart

LYNN – When 13-year-old Lynn resident Tyler Culp learned of the Haiti earthquake, he decided to take the Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have others do unto you – to a whole new level.”I was watching the news and I had seen all the people injured and hurt and it was so sad,” he said. “They were all saying they needed medical supplies so I thought it would be a good idea to help them. It is good to help out because if we were the ones in the situation people would probably be helping us too.”Culp and his parents, Derek R. Culp and Adriana Garcia, researched ways he could help the Haitian disaster victims and eventually discovered Ipswich-based Partners in Development. PID is a non-profit organization that has been committed to advancing the educational and economic situation of the developing countries of Haiti and Guatemala since 1990. They then asked the St. Pius Parish of Lynn to allow Culp to set up collection boxes throughout the weekend of Jan. 30-31.”They thought it was a good idea,” he said. “The collection was two days – we got a lot of crutches, bandages, splints and a lot of different Tylenol and Ibuprofen, a lot of hydrogen peroxide, eye wash, gauze, vitamins. It was incredible, it made me really happy. It meant that people felt the same (as me) and wanted to support.”Culp’s mother, Adriana Garcia, said the church-goers’ support was much more than she initially anticipated.”Initially I brought home four small paper boxes from work to put at the entrances of our church thinking maybe we’d be able to fill them,” she said. “My husband laughed at me and pulled out four, 80-gallon Rubbermaid containers from our basement; I laughed at him. He got the last laugh – they were filled at the first Mass on Saturday afternoon – overflowing.”The supplies filled an entire room in the family’s home until they could be dropped off at PID.”I remember Tyler’s face on Sunday afternoon after the last Mass and he brought the last containers to our basement, he looked around and said in typical 13-year-old fashion, ‘This makes my heart happy,’ with a giant smile on his face,” Garcia said.Culp said the PID staff was “really nice” and “shocked” by his efforts.”The outpouring of support from people like Tyler is instrumental for our nonprofit to be able to offer free medical care for those in need,” PID Director of Program Development Lisa Lassey said. “We are so grateful there has been so much local support for our work in Haiti. As far as his donation goes, it will be shipped to Haiti and used in three medical clinics there where PID is offering free medical care to earthquake victims. We currently have medical teams on the ground who are dealing with a lot of infections, malnutrition and injuries.”Culp said he is grateful for the help he received.”I had a lot of help from my family members and it was great that our church let us do the collection through them,” he said.Garcia said the collection just made the family want to do more.”I’m thrilled by what was done but it feels like there’s so much more to do,” she said. “Partners in Development needs so much help and we are so extremely grateful to our fellow parishioners and Friar Joe and Friar Neil at St. Pius V for their help and support with this little project of Tyler’s.”To learn more about Partners in Development or for those interested in joining a medical team or construction team traveling to Haiti, visit www.pidonline.org or call 978-417-9250.