In Holy Spirit Parish, Asbury Park, where some 250 Haitian families are coping with the loss of friends and family members back home, the mood has been somber, reflective and prayerful since the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Jan. 12.

The need to help those suffering in their homeland is visceral as was witnessed at the moving Mass in Creole Jan. 17, when several hundred persons came together to worship, to sing, to commiserate with each other, public officials and members of the community at large, and share ideas about how to help.

A moving example of that desire was there for all to see in the back of the church where 15 members of the parish youth group conducted a fund raising bake sale of homemade cakes, cookies and brownies they’d whipped up themselves over the weekend.

They set up before the first Mass at 8 a.m. and were still there raising money for Haiti when the Creole Mass let out at 3:15 p.m. “We had a meeting and decided we could bake,” said Sophie Joseph. It was a spontaneous decision, she said. “This was what we could do.”

The young people said their culinary skills had been well received. By the afternoon, the baked goods were all but sold out.

The bake sale is only one example of the fund raising efforts under way in the Haitian community at large, where organizations including the Coalition for Haitian-American Empowerment are working around the clock to collect goods and raise funds. But the economic downturn has clearly taken a toll on this community and the frustration people feel at not being able to do more was very palpable.

“The earthquake has touched every Haitian family,” said Father Paul Janvier, adjunct priest at the parish, who has devoted himself to the spiritual and social needs of the community for the last three years.

Even before the earthquake struck, Father Janvier said, the Asbury community was struggling under the weight of economic stress. “Many people have lost their jobs,” he said. Two of the biggest employers in the area, a laundry service and a newspaper, were among the businesses cutting jobs, he noted.

The loss of employment at the Jersey Shore meant many people couldn’t help their family members in Haiti, who were already suffering from the effects of the disastrous 2008 hurricane season when the earthquake struck, he said.

“If the people here are not working, they cannot help back home,” Father Janvier said. “You understand that they cannot help back home because this is a struggling community.

“It’s very hard because with the earthquake, you need to send more money to Haiti,” said Father Janvier.

The pall cast by the tragedy is compounded by the images spilling out 24-7 over the Internet and on the air waves, he said. The destruction, there for anyone with access to a computer or a television to see, can neither be ignored nor denied.

By Jan. 17, though, Father William McLaughlin, pastor of Holy Spirit, was among those who found the images so profoundly disturbing they could no longer watch.

“You can see that people have nowhere to live and nothing to eat. You can see that they are on the streets. The problem here is that so many people have lost their jobs, they can’t help,” said Father McLaughlin.

Lack of communication is making the situation even worse, both priests agreed.

“People can’t reach their relatives by phone,” said Father Janvier. “We know that every (Haitian) family has some people (who have died) but in many cases we don’t know who (has perished) and who is safe.

“We live in times with global information but when you don’t know from your own family who is safe, that is a (terrible) problem,” he said.

As of Jan. 18, Father Janvier was waiting for word on how many of the 28 children he personally helps educate are surviving. The children go to school in Port-au-Prince, away from their villages.

“I had a phone call at 2 a.m. from one of the children who was crying and wanted to go home, go back to the village,” said Father Janvier who said he would send the money if there was a means to do it by Western Union or some other electronic method but all lines were down.

Father McLaughlin said the parish was still waiting for in depth information from St. Jacques Parish outside Port-au-Prince which has had an ongoing twinning relationship with Holy Spirit for three years.

“The first thing we did was to sponsor children to go to parochial school,” said Father McLaughlin. Tuition, he said, costs $50 per child per year. “We have been able to sponsor full scholarships for 200 children.

“We have also purchased solar panels for electricity,” he said.

Now though, it’s likely that tuition will be put on hold as funds collected are shifted toward helping the people recover from this tragedy, Father McLaughlin said.

“People want to help, you can see that,” he said. “There’s a lot of good will.”