In the basement of the Ansonia Animal Hospital, boxes are piled up almost to the ceiling.
Local veterinarian Dr. T.C. Nanavati and his staff have been collecting donations to send to Haiti shortly after the Jan. 10 earthquake that devastated the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
When donations started pouring in, Nanavati’s veterinary assistant Becky Mahon, of Oakville, would pack them away in large cartons.
Some donations were sent to Nanavati’s home in Orange and his wife Dwarka also helped to transfer the donations from their home to the veterinary hospital on South Main Street.
Now that the boxes are full they will be shipped off to Haiti and will serve more than 500 residents there.
The boxes weigh more than 3,000 pounds.
Some contain medical supplies – gloves, bandages, surgical gloves, suture materials and other medical supplies. Other boxes contain clothes, bed sheets, shoes, warm clothing, umbrellas and shirts –while other boxes contain items such as toothpaste and toothbrushes.
Nanavati, who also operates a second office in Oxford, said he was so moved by what happened in Haiti that he felt the need to do something to help.
He said the boxes would now be shipped to Haiti as soon as possible.
As a child, Nanavati and his family lived in a tent city after the Indo-Pakistani war in 1947 forced them out of their home in the state of Kashmir, where he was born.
He was only 2 years old at the time, but said he has not forgotten the horrible conditions in the tent cities. That is why he felt compelled to start the collection, Nanavati said.
Mahon said she did not mind doing all of the packing because it was going to a “very good cause.’’