In October 2009, the Gingerbread Houses of Haiti were included on the 2010 World Monuments Watch, to raise international awareness about this unique architectural heritage. Many of these once elegant, turn-of-the-century structures, detailed with fretted wood and intricate latticework, had fallen into disrepair. While political instability and economic strife had precluded substantive preservation ef- forts in recent decades, the Haitian Leadership and Education Program (HELP) brought the Gingerbread Houses to the attention of the World Monuments Fund (WMF), in the hopes of generating support for the revitalization of these important buildings and communities. World Monuments Fund