Thai school tsunami relief effort (with photos)

[crispini]

Dear everyone on DU:
I know that many of you have already contributed generously to the tsunami relief effort, and of course, :yourock:

If you are interested I would like to let you know about an additional opportunity to help out a couple of specific schools.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, and now, I am a member of a group of returned Peace Corps Volunteers, "Friends of Thailand," who sponsor small projects directly helping the people of Thailand. They have created PROJECT RESTORE, which will be helping the rebuilding efforts of two schools, Ban Bang Sak School and Ban Bang Muang Elementary School, both near Phuket.

Anyway, I know a lot of people have already given to the tsunami relief efforts -- I just wanted to let everyone know about this direct effort. Sometimes it is nice to be able to send a little money and know exactly what it did.

Some of the money will be used as a scholarship fund for the orphans, some will be used for the lunch program or the language lab or the science lab. You can specify exactly which fund your contribution will go into. 100% of what Friends of Thailand receives will go to the school. NO money will be retained by Friends of Thailand or by any agency in Thailand.

John Williams, PC Country Director in Thailand, supports this project. In a recent email to Friends of Thailand, he wrote, "I was excited to hear about the FOT plans for the school. We visited the site where the school once stood, and it is totally destroyed. You couldn't have picked a better place to put your money."

You can find more information, including how to donate, about PROJECT RESTORE here:

http://www.friendsofthailand.org/friendsofthailand/FoTNews/crisis/schoolproject/main.html

If you like this idea, please keep kicked! Thanks!

Oh, and here are some photos of the kids from Ban Bang Muang elementary (pre-tsunami):

[Demit]

1. hey, crispini--do you know what would happen to any extra money they

got?

I've been holding off making a donation b/c I read that there is a fall-off, that lots of people give at the beginning but there is still a need later, after attention wanes. This sounds like a good thing. I like the idea that you vouch for it. Do you know what would happen if they got a huge inflow of cash and it was more than they needed?

Thanks.

[crispini]

2. Hm, I haven't asked them about that.

I'm willing to bet they hadn't thought about that because they're still about $12000 away from their goal. If you look on the web page here:

http://www.friendsofthailand.org/friendsofthailand/FoTNews/crisis/schoolproject/donors.html

you can see how much they have in each fund, and if you look on this web page:

http://www.friendsofthailand.org/friendsofthailand/FoTNews/crisis/schoolproject/information.html

you can see the goal for each fund. I just figured they would cut each fund off when they reach it, with the exception of the scholarship fund, which has no goal. I would imagine that one is open-ended because it is $250 per student per year for supplies and there are 148 orphaned children, so I would think they might put the extra into that fund.

There is an email address for FOT on the main page, you might write and ask if you like? I can ask for you if you want but there's no real reason to filter through me. :)

Cheers,
C

[crispini]

3. I just got an update.

She mentions that since the infirmary fund was already completed, she would be contacting everyone who had sent her extra money earmarked for this fund to see what they wanted to do. So there's your answer! (Yes, this is extremely small-time charity, but that's kind of why I like it.)

She also mentioned that they would be adding a fund to restore the school's computer lab.

[roguevalley]

4. people from this area are so pretty. god bless them. I hope the

money gets there. I'm tripping over fundraisers here. Anchorage, Alaska
was hoping for $50,000 and raised $750,000. Alaska has done a lot of fundraising. These are beautiful kids. I'm glad to see they can still smile.

[crispini]

5. kick

for the night crowd.