van-meter-logoA company in north-central Iowa is in the process of designing a solar energy array that will be installed on dozens of shacks on Haiti.

Logan Welch works for Cedar Rapids-based Van Meter Incorporated and he’s hoping to help bring a big improvement to the lives of the people who live on the island nation.

“My task is to design this array to provide power for the Haitians that greatly need it,” Welch says. “It’s amazing what we take for granted. You flip a switch and the light comes on. In Haiti, when the sun goes down, their life stops.” Welch hopes to have the design for the solar array completed this fall and knows it will have the potential to make an enormous impact.

“This will provide light for the children to do homework, security for their livestock and small neighborhoods of shacks and small homes,” Welch says. “It’s really a revolution. There’s a couple of homes right now that have solar in the area and they’re the go-to homes of the neighborhood because they can actually charge a cell phone and their kids can actually see at night.” Welch is planning to visit Haiti soon to help with the initial installation of the solar array project.

Welch says, “They’ve invited me to come down once I have a few of these designed to do some pilot runs and see how they last in the environment and how well they produce power over time before we roll out a larger, mass production of these.” Welch is working on the array at the request of a group of doctors who go to Haiti routinely for medical mission trips though the Coralville-based Community Health Initiative.

(Reporting by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)