It's been a year since Haiti was hit by a devastating 7.0 earthquake, which killed more than 200,000 people and left 1.5 million others homeless.
The devastation had a far-reaching impact on people around the world including Prince George residents, who responded with an urgent need to help.
And one year later, that response has grown to monumental proportions.
More than $250,000 came through the doors of the Prince George Red Cross office for the Haiti relief effort, said Becky Row, the organization's regional manager, and that doesn't include all the monies provided online.
One representative from the local Red Cross office region, which includes Northern B.C. and the Yukon, went to Haiti.
Whitehorse resident Al Alcock spent five weeks in Haiti overseeing the Red Cross as its workers built 15,000 shelters for earthquake victims.
Row said much more was gathered nationwide.
"More than $199 million was received by the Red Cross from individuals, corporations, provincial, territorial as well as local governments and the government of Canada to support the Red Cross efforts," she said.
However over the last several months donations to the Red Cross Haiti relief effort has tapered off significantly, said Row. The need for relief is still great.
And it's not just area residents showing diminishing support.
The Canadian government turned down a plea to extend its military relief effort in Haiti, according to a top United Nations official in Port-au-Prince.
Canada was widely praised for rushing to provide emergency help, including clean water, security and medical care, following the trembler.
But despite attempts by the UN and local authorities to persuade Ottawa to keep the engineers in Haiti beyond the end of Canada's relief mandate, the military packed up and left.
"I think there was a strong request that they stay on," Nigel Fisher, the UN's head of humanitarian aid in Haiti, told The Canadian Press in an interview from Port-au-Prince.
"Many felt that they wished they had stayed because they were extremely effective."
Canada's original mandate was to provide a rapid, short-term response and the UN says there was no obligation to extend the mission. Still, Fisher says, it would have been better if Canada had stuck around longer than a couple of months.
"The good thing is, they were very effective," Fisher said.
"Could they have stayed longer? Many people felt it would have been great if they had."
International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda says that once the cities of Leogane and Jacmel had been stabilized, the mission shifted to more of an international effort led by Haiti's government.
"I know that Canada's always being requested, wherever it works, to continue with its work," Oda said.
"If informal requests were made, it's in recognition [of] the great work that the Canadian Forces did in those six weeks."
Oda noted that some members of Canada's military, which dispatched 2,000 troops to Haiti in the quake's aftermath, are still on the ground.
"Canada did stay - Canada is still there," she said.
Former governor general Michaelle Jean, now a special envoy to Haiti for a UN organization, said recently that Haitians are frustrated that they've seen few signs of their country's reconstruction.
The Haitian-born Jean, who was a visible part of Canada's early relief efforts in Haiti, travels there Wednesday in her first visit since assuming her new role as a UNESCO envoy.
Her previous visit, as the Queen's representative last spring, brought her to the two main destinations for Canadian emergency aid: the coastal cities of Jacmel and Leogane.
Leogane remains awash in debris.
Canadian soldiers carrying medical supplies, potable water and food landed on Leogane's beach about a week after the quake destroyed 90 per cent of the city.
At the time, foreign aid had been flowing into Port-au-Prince, while people in rural communities like Leogane feared they had been forgotten.
Leogane's mayor praised Canada for helping the community through the initial crisis with things like medical care and food, but he says Leogane's long-term problems persist.
Alexis Santos says Canadians did a lot of heavy lifting in Leogane after the quake, which included clearing rubble from the streets, reinforcing city hall and pulling debris out of the canals.
"A lot was done because the city was completely broken - getting around was impossible," he said in an interview.
But a year later, a lot of broken concrete still chokes the city and Santos says it can't been removed with shovels and wheelbarrows.
Canada has committed more than $1 billion to Haiti through its regular foreign development initiatives and in new money promised since the quake.
