Overview: Food For Thought

Bonnie Garner Lockwood, adoptive mother of Lelan and Lacey also from Lang Son Vietnam realized that a small amount of money and effort could change peoples lives in northern Vietnam. So far, with the help of friends, Bonnie has accomplished some amazing things focussing on helping an elementary school in Lang Son, from their efforts, the school now has:

1) LUNCH PROGRAM
2) SCHOOL VEGGIE GARDEN
3) WATER WELL and

drum roll please............

4) CHICKEN PROJECT:Bonnie then developed a project that would see families receiving flocks of chickens, feed and coups. In exchange for the chickens families will send their children to school with cooked eggs to add protein to the lunch program. When the chickens have more than doubled their number of hens, these families will give some roosters and hens to another family on our list. After two years of planning, 600 chickens were delivered.
Unfortunately, they were meat chickens, not laying hens. While this has provided meat and improved the nutrition for these families temporarily, we need to replace the meat chickens with laying hens to create a more sustainable protein source.

PLEASE JOIN US TO REPLACE THE 600 CHICKENS! I will be traveling to Lang Son to organize the project in March 2012 to organize and deliver chickens.

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see how to donate.

This is the elementary school:

Here are the kids enjoying lunch thanks to the lunch program!

read more at Bonnie's blog:
http://charitabledreams.blogspot.com

Here is a recent article about the barriers for the poorer children to get an education. Look at the pictures of the kids on the raft, those are some kids in Lang Son where we are working.
http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/education/

check back in on our progess often!

Photo Gallery

Look for the Chicken on the map, this is Lang Son Province where the project is located.

These are some of the kids at the school. Thanks to the lunch program (that includes the chicken project and the vegetable garden) they are guaranteed a substantial meal once per day.

These are some of the homes in the area near the school. You can see how 20 chickens can make such a big difference to the lives of the people living here.

Here are two pictures of the the vegetable garden at the school. The food helps support the lunch program.

Check our Progress- WE DID IT!

OUr bottle drive yesterday helped us with our fundraising goals! Who knew bottles could add up so quickly! Thanks to the hard work of Lynn, Norm, Tai, Tricia, Rebecca, Hannah, Jeff, Steve and Natalie and all of the bottle donators, we raised $241.45 -not bad for a mornings work!
Here are some pictures.....

YIPPEE! Our fundraising goals have been met! We can now purchase 600 chickens and hire someone to take care of the program and keep it running for the next 2 years! Thanks to everyone that donated, collected bottles, and talked up the project with their friends. Any money raised before we leave will be used to help individual families or incidentals (nails for chicken coups etc) with any left when we leave being donated to the lunch program which is also much needed. We will blog all about it here- we will be working on the project for the last week of March.

There is also an opportunity to ensure that, as the "Food for Thought" program grows, the administration does not put undue hardship on the school who voluntarily oversees the program. This includes ensuring that the next families on the list receive chickens as new flocks become available. It seems like a smart idea to pay someone a small fee ($30/month) to help run the program (which includes: the lunch program for 50 kids, the garden, the chicken project and caring for a "teaching" flock of chickens at the school). YIPPEE WE MET OUR GOAL OF HAVING A CHICKEN HELPER FOR 2 YEARS! Thank-you Thank-you Thank-you everyone!

While the goal is to have the lunch program sustain itself, until then, it takes money to feed the kids every day. This may be the only substantial meal they can rely on each day. School runs 9 months of the year. While each family contributes a bit of rice to the lunch program, veggies, protein and more rice are currently being purchased. When we visit, one of the projects will be to look at the garden and see what we can do to get it yeilding some substantial crops of veggies. The person we will hire will be instrumental in making the garden sucessful. The research begins for me. What is the condition of the soil? Do they need a composting program? Can we use chicken manure on the garden? Until everything takes off, we can make sure the kids get a healthy balanced meal at lunch time. Once again, the fundraising efforts of the mighty little team will go toward this endeavor.

Thank-you to Trisha for her heartfelt and touching donation in memory of her friend Wendy.

Now a funny story told with thanks!
In an email to friends about the chicken project, I had offered: 1) to sing songs to the chickens while they were on route to thier new families 2) have a naming ceremony so that people donating money could name them 3) knit little hats and scarves for the chickens (northern Vietnam can get pretty cold in the winter). In response... My friend Jeremy sent this email after donating to the chicken project......

HEY! We’re the proud parents of new chickens!!! I hope they are the egg kind....so our babies aren’t grilled, steamed, boiled or fried! We did the paypal thing.

Now............Names!

· Jeremy

· Carol

· Olivia

· Fletcher

· Maeve

· Bigglesworth (our dog)

· Captain Canada

· Luongo

· Bieksa

· Kesler

· Victoria (our great city)

· Tam-eve (your two names combined). Great work you two
I would love you to sing the chicken song while doing three repetitions of the chicken dance (I WANT PICTURES ON THE BLOG! J ). This is not punishment....but honestly sounds fun!After that....A whole new world from the Aladdin soundtrack

In response, the daughter of one of one of my colleagues hears about Jeremy's email and responded with the following note that included songs and names...it looks like we will be singing away to the chickens for quite a while. Thanks to you all for supporting the project!

Big Thanks to:
Brenda who bought $25 in chickens as a birthday gift for her Mom. That is 10 chickens....1/3 of a flock of chickens that will make a big difference in the lives of a Vietnamese family.

Trisha's family who save their empty bottles for the chicken project and anonymously drop them off at her house; and thanks to Trisha for all of the bottle sorting and returning them. I am surprised at how empty bottles can add up!

Evan Murrison for our first $68. Evan just turned 7 years old and decided that instead of gifts for his birthday, he would ask for Chicken donations- Evan donated 27 chickens, that is almost a whole flock!

I am so energized by everyone's support! From the ladies that dropped money on my desk at work, to my sister in law that emailed money early one morning, to Evan's grandparents that matched his donation.

and a BIG BIG THANK-YOU to some more Chicken Project Champions:
Lin
Joanna
Karen and Alan
Jeremy and Betty
Elisa, Rebecca and Caroline
Carolyn
Lacey and Lelan
Kelly and Tien
Orla
Tori
Mary and Charlie
Mavis
Natalie
Donna, Michael and Jaidinh
Annalu
Nathaniel and Petra
Meaghan
Janice
Tiffany
Hannah
Kelly L.
Ethan
Kris and Christine
Nicole and Scott
The Sheldrakes
The Vagels
Rachael
Nick M
Juanita and Dave
Ross and Linda
Island Temperature Controls
Tricia B.
To everyone that donated bottles for the bottle drive!
Peter V
Margaret S.
Bill at Island Temp Controls
Dr. Robert and Kim Kinney