By John Padorr | Communications and Development
We wish to thank everyone who contributed to our Mercy Centre rice/nourishment project. When you make a gift of rice to our foundation, you are actually supporting many projects. The most far-reaching project is for the children in our 23 kindergartens, where over 2,500 poor children are gaining their first lessons in reading and writing and math as they learn to play with others, say nice words, and countless object lessons in life.
The cooked, nutritious lunch, served over rice, that our children receive every school day is the most nourishing meal of their day. Many of their parents earn less than the daily minimum wage, if anything at all. For many students, their school lunch may be their only real meal of the day. Over 20 percent of our incoming first year students suffer from some degree of malnourishment. Thus, the meal we provide is the fuel that our students need to grow and develop and learn and gain all the opportunities in life that every child deserves.
In addition we serve lunch in five schools we operate in construction worker camps. The students in these schools are the children of migrant workers (mostly Cambodian, Burmese and Lao) who have come to Thailand to receive a minimum daily wage (or less) as unskilled construction workers.
The rice you give us also serves the 180 children who live with us as family in our Mercy Centre. These children were orphaned, abused, used, or thrown away before they joined our family.
Finally, we give individual 5 pound sacks of rice to families and individuals in crisis. Our Mercy Centre is a drop-in centre for the poorest of the poor. Generally, people only come to us when they need our help the most - that is, in times of emergency. So in evercy case, your gift makes a great difference.
We’ve attached a couple of photos of a construction worker camp and construction camp school to give you an idea who is receiving your gifts. Also attached, a photo of lunch time at one of our kindergartens. Once again, thank you everyone – your gifts are incredibly important to all the children in our care and everyone who comes to us for assistance. Please visit our Mercy Centre any time, whenever you may be in Bangkok. You are always most welcome and you will always be a part of our Mercy family.
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