The tragedy of the past week left us, like so many around the world, speechless. While the full impact of the quake was slowly becoming clear, we sat here wishing there was more we could do to help.
Every once in a while opportunity drops right in your lap.
On Wednesday, January 13th, we happened to run across a particularly high-traffic site that had just been created. It didn't take long for us to realize who it was. "Yéle Haiti? Isn't that Wyclef's relief organization that we just saw on CNN?" Within minutes we had emailed the link around to the entire office and verified that this was the real deal.
We were hosting an organization that was on the ground, making an immediate impact towards recovery. We immediately reached out to the Yéle Haiti folks to see if there was anything we could do.
Apparently, on the first day of the earthquake, their previous web host had crashed under the strain of traffic brought on by people around the world looking to learn more and make a difference. The Yéle Haiti team looked to move to a platform that could handle this increased load and decided on Squarespace. They quickly redirected yele.org and our cloud infrastructure began immediately serving more than 10,000 uniques to it every hour. With the immediate traffic issues solved, Senior Designer Krystyn Heide jumped in to work with Yéle Haiti team on fine-tuning the design.
Previously, their site was static and difficult to update. As Yéle Haiti's mission is now shifting from long-term projects to immediate earthquake relief, the flexibility of Squarespace is critical in allowing multiple staffers to quickly edit content, whether in front of a computer or in the field via email or our iPhone app.
We are so excited to be able to help and sincerely ask that you do the same. Watch Yéle's live press conference from yesterday to hear more about their organization's recent efforts. If you would like to make a tax deductible donation, you can either text "YELE" to 501501 on your cell phone (a $5 donation will be charged to your next cell phone bill), or donate online.
Our hearts go out to everyone involved.