My Volunteer Business Card

This is my volunteer business card design which I completed today. By this time tomorrow, I will have a stack of these cards on hand to distribute when the situation presents itself.

COPE (Co-operative Orthotics and Prosthetics Enterprise)

This morning I received the May newsletter from COPE (Cooperative Orthotics and Prosthetics Enterprise), a local not-for-profit organization in Vientiane, Lao PDR, which I visited in December 2012. 

This particular organization provides services to people with disabilities (including victims maimed by unexploded bombs, the deadly remnants of the 'Secret War' which are scattered throughout Laos in the millions) to help them move on.

My Birthday at Sabai Sabai

On the evening of Saturday, May 4, a small group of us (including three of my Lao friends who live north of my home city of Toronto) dined at Sabai Sabai, the Lao-owned Thai restaurant, to celebrate my 51st birthday. When we arrived, there were already lots people. By the time we departed, the restaurant was packed with customers.

Shortly after arriving, I presented one of the owners, who is originally from Vientiane, a framed version of the water filter campaign poster for Adopt a Village in Laos and a small stack of water filter brochures. I explained that he should display them both in a prominent location in the restaurant, with the intention of generating awareness and excitement among his customers.

The following day I posted a message to Sabai Sabai's Facebook page to thank the owners and staff for making my special day such a truly wonderful and festive experience.

Explore Legacies of War Multimedia Interactive Centre

This morning I discovered a new, visually dynamic section on Legacies of War web site.

Called Legacies' MIC: giving the past a voice, this multimedia experience "serves to educate the public the U.S.-led secret war carried out in Laos from the mid 1960s through the 1970s."

Explore it today and learn. 

Water Filter Donations

The month of May has started off very well.

A couple of weeks ago I briefly visited Sabai Sabai, the Lao-owned Thai restaurant in my home city of Toronto, to deliver some water filter brochures and a display stand for them.

Yesterday I received a wonderful email from Steve Rutledge, Adopt a Village in Laos founder and president, in which he informed me that the restaurant had donated two water filters on the previous day. Later that same day, I posted a message to Sabai Sabai's Facebook page to thank them for their support.

This morning while having coffee with my friend Gary, who had recently donated a water filter, he shared some exciting news with me. Both his mother and sister had committed to donating one water filter each. Once the variety store, which is just around the corner from where we were having coffee, opened, he ventured there to withdraw the necessary funds from the ATM and presented me with the cash.

Later, I visited my bank and had a money order drawn up. Then on my way to work, I popped by the post office and mailed it XpressPost.

Finally, the funds which I had recently collected from the sale of some of the remaining Adopt a Village in Laos T-shirts (created for my Tees for Laos campaign in 2011) will be used in donating one water filter unit in memory of my mother.

Water Filter Campaign 2013

At the end of April, with the help of generous supporters, Adopt a Village in Laos achieved its target of 200 water filters, each one of which will soon provide a rural village family of up to eight people with clean water for drinking and washing.

This morning I received an email from Steve Rutledge, the founder and president of this small Canadian charity with which I volunteer, where he stated that he was venturing onto his next target for water filters. In this new campaign, he is hoping to secure 300 units.

To help him achieve his goal, I will be presenting one of the owners of Sabai Sabai with a beautifully framed version of the above poster on the evening of Saturday, May 4. On that particular night, I will be celebrating my fifty-first birthday with a small group of friends at this fabulous and busy Lao-owned Thai restaurant in the heart of my home city of Toronto. Along with the water filter brochures, this display will help raise awareness for the charity itself and hopefully encourage donations for this new campaign.