Whew, Friday really took his time getting here this week. But, what a successful week it has been! On behalf of the entire team, I just wanted to cordially thank everyone that donated to our program recently. Our current balance sits at $4,422.46– an almost $2,000 increase from last week’s standing! We truly appreciate the support that we have been receiving for the trip and cannot wait to make a difference this summer.
This week’s meeting covered a lot of real estate in terms of new fundraisers and work opportunities. We have our next bar night on Thursday, the 19th at Jack Sprat’s Bar on Franklin Street. There will be live music, drink specials and Habitat’s famous baked goods sold outside. Cover charges and donations will go directly to H4H Thailand! This weekend, about half the team will be working at Saturday’s football game in Kenan Stadium. We will be handing out newspapers for the Daily Tar Heel for a couple hours and just having a good ol’ time! Also on the docket– we’re currently planning a Thai buffet in the Pit to be held sometime in the beginning of December. We will be collecting food donations from local Thai restaurants around Chapel Hill and selling plates to students for a small profit. Lastly, we have three or four team members scouring the Triangle area for odd job listings. We would really love to find some odd jobs in the local area, that require a handful of people (raking, painting, laying mulch, etc.); so if you know of anyone that needs some work done, you know who to contact! That’s all for now! Continue to check back!
Habitat for Humanity’s annual Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project is a weeklong event, but the planning behind it begins many months before the first bricks are laid. A handful of volunteers have been in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for four or five months, preparing the build site and laying the groundwork for a new community of 82 houses…
Here’s a new easy way to raise money for UNC-Habitat Thailand. Just start using Yahoo! powered GoodSearch.com as your search engine and they’ll donate about a penny to us every time you do a search!
In addition, do all of your shopping through their online shopping mall, GoodShop.com, where you can shop at more than 900 top online retailers and a percentage of your purchases will go to H4H Thailand, as well. You pay the same price as you normally would, but a small donation goes to our cause! Here’s the web site — www.goodsearch.com
Select UNC-Habitat Thailand before you make any searches. Our ID# is: 911120
You can also read about GoodSearch in the NY Times, Oprah Magazine, CNN, ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.
The USS City Of Corpus Christi arrived in Laem Chabang on Oct. 24 for a scheduled port visit.
More than 20 American sailors came ashore and picked up hammers to complete three Nong Plalai homes for impoverished families being constructed by the local arm of U.S.-based Habitat for Humanity.
The sailors from the USS City Of Corpus Christi came to Cahana Village Oct. 26 where Habitat for Humanity (Thailand) Ltd. is building 16 small homes that will sell for just 14,000 baht and can be paid on monthly installments of around only 1,000 baht. HFH Volunteer Coordinator Supattra Malairojsiri said this is the third partnership between the group and the U.S. military.
Founded in Udon Thani in 1998, HFH Thailand has built or refurbished 4,103 homes. This year alone the group has assisted 1,181 families. Each home is about 36 sq. meters and the design features make use of concrete interlocking blocks or concrete hollow blocks with a tiled roof. Habitat also builds wooden stilt houses with metal sheet roofs in southern Thailand. House construction normally takes about 20 days and costs about 150,000 baht, which is donated by people from around the world.
American sailors help build houses for low-income families in Nong Plalai. Supattra said HFH Thailand hopes to build another 5,000 homes by the end of 2011. In addition to building the homes, the U.S. military personnel also cleaned up the Baan Jing Jai orphanage area. The soldiers trimmed trees and pulled weeds. They also helped the children cultivate the kitchen garden. The USS City Of Corpus Christi (SSN 705) is one of the U.S. Navy’s three forward deployed fast attack nuclear powered submarines. It arrived in Laem Chabang on Oct. 24 for a scheduled port visit. It has a crew of 147, but with only 50 bunks – some of which are in the torpedo room only inches away from Tomahawk missiles. The submarine’s commander is Robert M. Gaucher. The work they did here with Habitat for Humanity was part of their comrels (community relations) work.
American military personnel cultivate the kitchen garden at Baan Jing-Jai.
Tonight was very successful! Thanks to everyone who came out and supported us! Selling baked goods in bone-chilling weather at 3am in morning wasn’t easy, but it did pay off– we made another $125! At the same time tonight, we also made $82.00 in donations from our Bub’s sponsored bar night! We had a great time as usual and wouldn’t want to spend our Thursday night any other way. In other news, the Thailand team is going on a retreat this weekend to the North Carolina mountains. We’ll be staying Friday and Saturday near Boone, NC. We’re all looking forward to a relaxing weekend to wrap a rather hectic and event-filled week. Continue to check the blog for more updates on our progress. Our current balance stands at $2,357.46!
Brandon, Miguel and Erica asking for donations at Bub O'Malley's sponsored bar night for H4H Thailand
Our first bar night is being sponsored by Bub’s at 157 E Rosemary Street. Take a break out of your toiling week and come relax with UNC-Habitat! There will be special karaoke performances by members of the H4H Thailand team– that should be quite the incentive. The fun starts Thursday night, 10-2am. Be there!
Our second bake sale went very well tonight! We stayed on Franklin Street until almost 3 am in the morning selling warm donuts and cupcakes! Our total earnings for the night came out to be around $181. Enjoy the pictures, Happy Halloween!
Tasha, Colleen, Shani, Mohammad and Franklin selling baked goods on Franklin St.
Colleen, Madison, Mohammad, Miguel, Nathalie, Shani and Tasha
To all the nonbelievers and naysayers who challenged the credibility of my story this summer, I have, in fact, recovered the video documenting my encounter with Dumbo, the Asian elephant I befriended during my trip to Thailand. He’s a very amiable creature– dynamic personality, great listener due to his over-sized ears, sturdy in his beliefs and just an all-around fun guy to hang out with. Everyone always wants to know and always asks that same question: How did you meet? So I’ll answer it here. As incredulous as it may seem, we essentially met by the sheer stroke of good fortune– my boat just happened to pull into the very township he was staying at. We bonded rather quickly that day and spent the better half of the afternoon just chatting on the Mekong riverbank. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, saying goodbye to Dumbo that day, but I did and I feel I’ve developed as a person because of it. We’ve tried to keep in touch over the months, but long-distance relationships just foster too much strain and needless stress. Dumbo never really put much effort into his postcards, anway. At any rate, you will witness in this video our first magical lunch together, when I threw him a banana tree trunk and he romantically devoured it while looking into my eyes.
