A Whitehorse youth who was faced with paying more than $1,000 to send donations to Haiti will no longer have to worry about the cost.

Morgan Wienberg, 18, will go to Haiti later this week.

F.H. Collins Secondary School's valedictorian for 2010 will spend the next two months volunteering at schools, medical centres and orphanages in the country, struck by the disastrous earthquake of Jan. 12.

Wienberg, whose plans were profiled in last Friday's Star, recently sent out a request for donated items, which she will take with her on the plane to Haiti.

Individual members of the community, as well as local businesses, responded to the request with soccer balls, medical supplies, art equipment, diapers, reading glasses, tents and more.

However, Air Canada told Wienberg she is only permitted one piece of checked luggage for her international flight.

Last week, Wienberg expected between three and five extra boxes of donations she will have to check.

On Monday morning, however, she said she expects she will bring at least six – and she is still receiving goods.

With a cost of at least $200 per extra piece of luggage, Morgan was looking at charges of more than $1,000 to check the boxes of donations.

Karen Wienberg, Morgan's mother, attempted to contact Air Canada's customer relations department about an exemption on the charge for the six or seven months leading up to her daughter's flight. She received no response.

Last Friday afternoon, Karen did reach John Dooley, an Air Canada official responsible for the Yukon area.

Dooley had Morgan e-mail him an itemized list of everything she plans to check as well as the approximate volume, which he needs if he is to authorize the exemption.

On Monday afternoon, Morgan learned that Air Canada has agreed to waive the costs of two additional pieces of check luggage that can weigh up to 32 kilograms.

Although Morgan expects there will still be as many as three pieces of luggage Air Canada won't exempt, she doesn't have to worry about the cost.

Over the weekend, Grant Lundy of GE Water in Whitehorse offered to pay for the excess baggage if Air Canada would not let her take it for free.

"It's pretty amazing,” said Morgan.

"He offered to pay for all of it, so I'm quite glad actually that he won't have to.”

"It just sort of fits in with GE things and it was something local I could do,” said Lundy, who has already donated 200 drinking water filtration systems to Haiti through GE Water.

"A lot of people helped me out here when I was struggling,” and this is a way to return the favour, he added.

For her part, Morgan will do her best to reduce the amount of personal items she takes with her. She said all of the checked baggage will be full of donated items.

What little she does take to Haiti she'll be leaving behind – except for her camera.