Three days after a relief team returned from Haiti, one of its members shared his experiences with the Gardendale Rotary Club.

Club member Richard Bradley was part of a 19-member group that traveled to Haiti on Feb. 7 for a one-week relief mission.

The Rotary Club donated $2,500 to the group for medical supplies and food given out to Haitians, following the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the country.

“People ask me, ‘Did you enjoy your trip?,’” Bradley said to the club on Wednesday. “It was a heartbreaking thing to go through. These people are in a bad way; there’s no easy way to describe what they’re going through.”

Bradley talked about the group’s experiences while giving a slideshow presentation depicting the devastation and desperation of the Haitian people.

He described the Haitian government as “corrupt and stupid” because of complications the group experienced with trying to transport supplies into Haiti.

Before leaving the states, the group secured 48,000 individually sealed meals through the group Kids Against Hunger. The pallets of food were shipped from Miami, Fla., to the Dominican Republic ahead of the group’s arrival. However, the Haitian government demanded several signatures before allowing supplies to be transported into the country.

Bradley said the Haitian government’s relief roadblocks are making a dire situation worse. “People are suffering because [groups] can’t get supplies to them,” he said.

After finally being allowed to bring aid into the country, the group set up relief efforts at a church. Boxes of sealed meals were given out to throngs of hungry Haitians. One box of the meals can feed a family of four for 30 days.

It took three days for a cooking stove to arrive at the church, allowing the group to feed 250 to 300 people per day on chicken, rice and beans before food ran out.

Other members of the team, which included a retired emergency room doctor and two EMTs, set up a makeshift medical clinic to tend to sick and injured Haitians.

The church where the team stayed could only accommodate 16 members of the group. Bradley slept in the front seat of a car for three days. However, he said that couldn’t compare to the living conditions of those in Jacquet and in the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

Because so many homes were destroyed, many Haitians have no place to go and have been forced to sleep in alleys and tent cities across the country. Some of Bradley’s photos depicted signs on churches that asked for help.

His presentation also included before and after photos of the Montana Hotel, once a four-star hotel in Port-au-Prince.

The hotel is where Air Force Lt. Col. Ken Bourland was killed in his second-floor room. Funeral services for Bourland, a Birmingham native, were held Tuesday at Gardendale First Baptist Church.

Despite the devastation the group witnessed, Bradley said he did see plenty of smiles on the faces of those they helped. Members of the team played frisbee, Nerf football and soccer with children in the town.

The trip also taught the group much about Haitians and their way of life. “The people are just like us,” he said. “They want to earn a living and take care of their families.”

Bradley said the trip was a memorable experience and said it would not have been possible without assistance from the Rotary Club, area churches and Jeremy Sanders, who organized the group.

On Thursday, Sanders said he was still trying to process what he and the group witnessed in Haiti. He thanked all those who prayed and supported the group on its mission.

Bradley told fellow Rotarians that despite the devastation and the conditions, the group accomplished much in a short time. Sanders and Bradley have even been talking about a possible return trip.

“There are things I’ll never forget, though I wish I could,” he said. “But there are also things I’ll never forget because I want to remember.”

A blog detailing the group’s journey and efforts in Haiti can be found online at http://gfbc-haiti-2010.blogspot.com.