"Two Brooklyn school co-workers share one dream to adopt in Haiti,"
By Ben Chapman - NEW YORK DAILY NEWS



For five years they've shared an office at a Brooklyn school - and now they share a dream.

Assistant Principals Henry Renelus and Regina Tottenham only recently learned they are both adopting young children victimized by the Haiti earthquake.

The two, administrators at P368K Star Academy in Bedford-Stuyvesant, have already traveled to Haiti together with their spouses and are working toward adopting kids they met.

"I guess we're more alike than we thought," said Renelus, 36, who was born in Haiti and lives in Nassau County with his wife and their three kids. "We're both blessed to be able to help."

As colleagues, the two worked just a few feet apart at the K-12 school for children with autism and other issues.

They were friendly but never spent time together outside work, until they left for a week-long trip to Haiti last month.

When Renelus told Tottenham of his plan to adopt a Haitian child during a school meeting on Feb. 22, she was shocked.

"You're flippin' kidding me," recounted Tottenham, 43, who lives in Williamsburg with her 3-year-old son and husband. "I was thinking the same thing."

The couples' trip to Haiti was tough to take.

"What we saw there broke our hearts," said Renelus, who moved to Brooklyn when he was 12. "The destruction is unbelievable."

The couples visited Bon Samaritan, an orphanage where 55 kids sleep in tents about 20 miles north of Port-au-Prince.

Tottenham plans to return in six months to adopt an 8-month-old girl, Charlinde, who was left in a basket by her mother after the quake.

Right now, the docile baby with braided hair gets only one small meal of rice each day - and has no diapers.

Renelus visited his cousin, Fitzner Renelus, 46, who lives with his wife and six kids in Croix-des-Bouquets, about eight miles outside the capital.

The family's house was flattened by the earthquake, and they now live in tents made of bedsheets, with little water and food.

After a tearful reunion, the family decided Renelus will adopt two boys, Obedson, 5, and John Peterson, 16, chosen because the younger is Renelus' godson and the older boy can look out for his younger brother in America.

"I'd send all of my children away if I could," their father Fitzner told The News in a phone call. "Only God knows when life in Haiti will return to normal."