Of Global Interest - Random Acts of Kindness Fund

I am collecting donations to take to Nepal. While my trekkers and I are exploring Nepal during our customized trips, we will volunteer in some capacity and spend this fund on random acts of kindness for Nepali children and others in need. You can read the Tuesday, December 5, 2000, Last E-mail Adventure Journal IV: The Prison. This was the adventure that motivated me to collect donations. The history below explains how the fund started and what happened after I sent The Prison story adventure journal to my mailing list. There was also a news article in the Ann Arbor News.

H I S T O R Y

In October 2000, Joe Connaughton, a friend interested in going to Nepal, sent me a letter a few days before I was on my way to Kathmandu. In the envelope there were two $50 bills taped to the paper inside. Joe wrote, "Please use this to take some homeless children out to lunch, buy them some clothes or some shoes or whatever they may need. I just want to brighten up their lives in some way." I called Joe immediately. He said, "I try to do one good thing a month."

When in Nepal, I took Joe's money to the Kathmandu Prison and bought gifts for 41 innocent children I had learned were growing up inside the prison. After meeting the children that afternoon, I wrote about the adventure and sent it to the people on my mailing list. A few of them then sent the Prison Story to their friends.

Some weeks later a woman from California, Maya Hamilton, wrote to me. She said, she was going to Nepal and wanted to bring gifts to the children in the prison. I wrote her back explaining the details. A few days later, she wrote to me again saying the authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul wanted to put the Prison Story in their next book! The authors THEN donated $1,000 to the prison children. Maya took this money to Nepal and ended up RELEASING eight children from the prison who now live in a home run by Prison Fellowship International (PFI). Maya is now raising $129,000 to build a second home in Kathmandu so that 25 more prison children can be released and sponsored for the next ten years.

View a video of the Ellen Rowe playing piano in Kathmandu - click on the space below