- Via WEAR-TV 3/Pensacola, Florida -

HAITI - All this week we've been showing you how some local dollars and donations are helping Haiti.

A small organization called BahamasHabitat.org has been coordinating dozens of pilots and reaching areas that otherwise wouldn't get much help.

As everyone around here knows, disaster response requires a lot of help from outside the area. Most people remember the big truckloads of goods that came in after Hurricane Ivan.

We've all been watching news about the mass exodus from Port-Au-Prince. Most of those people are fleeing to smaller towns. Many of those people had a minor medical problems when they left, but due to infection and a lack of treatment, when they get to those small towns, they find themselves in a life-threatening situation, in a location that's extremely difficult to reach.

Dr. Robert Legr/Managing 2 Hospitals: "The acute phase is over. Now the waiting list is long."

The needs are clear: medicine, medical supplies, and doctors. But getting those to the places they're needed when they're needed is where the headache comes in. The entire country could fit inside the Florida Panhandle, but the lack of infrastructure makes travel nearly impossible.

Even air travel is tough. Most of the airports can't accommodate large planes. That's where Bahamas Habitat has found a niche.

Abe McIntyre/BahamasHabitat.org: "I really feel that people want to do good, they want to give back, they want to love on people but they don't always know how to do that."

The group usually builds homes in the Bahamas, island-hopping with their own plane from one needy family to the next. After the quake happened, their new mission became clear.

McIntyre: "There's so many more of these smaller airports and smaller cities that are just are getting left behind, and the stuff is not getting out of Port-Au-Prince, into these other cities."

They're organizing private pilots, packing their planes full of goods, and getting to those towns.

Dr. Richard McGlaughlin/Volunteer Pilot and Doctor: "It's more fun than a barrel of monkeys, and I want to tell all of those single engine pilots that they really ought to come."

Often, getting to a place like this is a logistical nightmare: avoiding Cuban airspace, figuring out whether the runway is usable, where to buy gas. And then there's the cost: about 1500 to 2000 thousand bucks a trip. But those small planes can pack in 30 to 50 thousand dollars' worth of medical supplies.

McIntyre: "If someone has a more efficient manner to do this, then please bring it to us, but at this point, there's not."

If you want to help the relief efforts, log onto BahamasHabitat.org.

Dan Thomas will be going back to Haiti this weekend. If you have any questions you want answered or stories you want covered, email Dan or leave him a message on Channel Three's Facebook page.How Do Small Groups Get Supplies to Haiti?