Chiang Dao Charity Give Away
Sunday 16th November 2008
Charity Give away at Pha Lai
Karen hill tribe village, east of
Chiang Dao.
A small group of bikes and a truck loaded with goodies headed out from Richco Motorsports to a small Karen village outside Chiang Dao. There we presented school supplies to a local school/day care center.
50 blankets were distributed to the local residents and, of course, toys to the patiently waiting, but very anxious children.
A pictue is worth a thousand words
so for more on the event please go
here;
Chiang Dao Photos
Chiang Mai ToyRide: Past Events:
On 6 January, the first Chiang Mai ToyRide leapt into the world with a couple hundred bikes, a few hundred people, several hundred toys and at least a hundred happy kids and orphans who got food, music, entertainment, new toys and a festive experience under their belt. And after expenses for that day, we raised an additional $150,000 baht.
On
12 January, National Children’s Day,
ToyRide Event Number Two gave the
rest of the toys donated the week
before and 200 newly purchased
stuffed animals, Jokerman the Clown,
plus ice cream and sodas for a few
hundred more kids at Vieng Ping
orphanage in Chiang Mai. An exact
count was impossible since they ran
around here and there, came and went
with foster families and crowded
around the clown, the ice cream, the
toys and the Thumb Wrestling
Tournament to win the five major
stuffed animals that were bigger
than the littlest kids.
Unless you were present to witness
the toy feeding frenzy, it’s hard to
imagine the excitement on the faces
of the crush of kids as their eyes
feasted on the mound of toys while
impatiently waiting to dive in and
snatch their own. Just visualize two
hundred American stockbrokers
sitting around a huge pile of dollar
bills. (Unlike this scenario where
several people would have died in
the foray, all of our children
joyfully survived.) This event cost
about 23,000 baht, not including the
several thousand baht worth of toys
leftover from 6 January, nor the
days of work repairing the
orphanage’s playground equipment:
pick up merry-go-rounds and swing
sets, sandblast at Richco
MotorSports, deliver and paint at
another location, and finally return
shiny, like-new equipment that won’t
abuse the orphans. Hats off to
ToyRide founders Richy Wilson and
Robert Straghan for hours and hours
of their time, energy and TLC!
(
For a printable PDF file of this
event click here.)
Read Chiang Mai Mail Magazine reports of this event...
Chiang Mai Toy Ride a Smashing Success
Everybody Needs A Buddy
Chiang Mai ToyRide gives stuffed animals to hospitalized children
Off the road and room-to-room, Chiang Mai ToyRide committee members and guests gave elephants, bears and bunnies to ailing children and their families at Maharaj Hospital on 30 April 2008. After meeting with hospital directors who received nurse bears, we rolled two carts brimming with animals into the lobby and split into four small “teams” which personally presented stuffed buddies to children in several wards: cancer, kidney/chronic disease, heart disease, liver disease and ICU. (Read more here, photos).
On Sunday,
18 May, 2008, Chiang Mai ToyRide Event Number
Three was a
ride around
the mountain to the playground of
the Samoeng school to present
toys, warm blankets, athletic
equipment and food to local kids and
sixty children with family members
from Mai Lan Kham, a poor Karen
village about 30 miles beyond in the
mountains.
We met at Yamaha Square, on Huay Kaew road in front of Central Department Store at 10:00AM. Then riding from Yamaha Square to Samoeng where the children were brought from their villages and gifts presented.
Toys and donations generated from the January, Chiang Mai ToyRide 2008 were brought to the event site. The smiles generated were priceless.
If you didn't come you missed a fantastic event which had great attendance.
Donations
All funds raised will be distributed by the ToyRide committee through the nonprofit Give and Live at other events throughout the year. We’re trying to focus on needy children who are “under the radar” because of their remote locations – folks that haven’t been helped by other charitable organizations.
CHIANG
MAI TOYRIDE
2009
The event is scheduled for Sunday
4th January 2009.
Many more people / companies /
organizations have expressed
interest in supporting the 2009
event, & indeed future toy rides. So
it seems as if the 2008 Chiang Mai
ToyRide was
a real success.
Thank you to all those who rode on,
worked on or donated to the 2008
events.