Posted Date : 02/17/2005 CST A 40 foot container full of goods was shipped to Sri Lanka in the first week of February, 2005 for the tsunami relief effort. Clothes, medicine, medical equipment and other relief goods donated by Houstonians and numerous organizations were collected for a period of four weeks at the Houston Buddhist Vihara. Throughout this month, volunteers tirelessly spent nights and weekends sorting and packing these goods in to boxes. On January 29th, 2005, volunteers spent the full day loading the container. This shipment will reach Sri Lanka by March 16th, 2005 and the goods will be distributed to the most needed areas in Sri Lanka. The shipping cost for the container was fully sponsored by Mr. Rod Crosby and we wish to extend our deepest gratitude to him for his generosity in this time of need. The items consist of: - Donated items from all over Houston. (Clothes, Shoes, Cooking Utensils, Toys, bottled water, baby formula) - Clothing items (21,000 items in 235 boxes) donated by "Kingwood Mothers of Young Children". - Items collected by the Donation drive at the Pasadena Public Library. (Baby bottles, diapers, baby items, books) - Five Hospital beds from Medical Bridges. - Remaining medical supplies from Medical Bridges that could not be air lifted. - 1000 learning boards, 1000 socks and 6000 pieces of chalk donated by WWW UNITED Inc. - Clothing items and shoes donated by the Roteract Club of River Oaks. Our sincere thanks to: - Mr. Rod Crosby, for paying the shipping cost of the container. - Medical Bridges Inc, for donating the hospital beds and medical supplies. - Kingwood Mothers of young children, for the clothing donation. - Pasadena public library, for donating the baby items. - WWW UNITED inc, for donating school supplies. - Roteract Club of River Oaks, for donating clothes and shoes. - Houston Girl Scout Troop, for helping to sort and pack various items. - All the people who donated items. - All the volunteers who dedicated many weekends sorting and packing the boxes. - To the volunteers who rented a U-HAUL truck and a trailer to transport the items from the temple to the container location. - All the volunteers who helped to load the container within a day. - The Houston Buddhist Vihara for the space provided for this worthy cause. - Ven. Rahula Thero, Ven. Anuruddha Thero and Ven. Seewali Thero for their support.
Update : 04/10/2005 CST The first container reached Sri Lanka on the 29th of March. ADIC has now completed the clearing of this container. The medical supplies (hospital beds and a few boxes of medicines) will be handed over to the Ministry of Health. These will be given to hospitals with matching needs in coordination with ADIC by the Ministry of Health. The remainder of the container was cleared with the assistance of the Ministry of Social Services and the Prime Ministers office. With the help of various officials in these respective ministries, ADIC staff has now finalized the paperwork required to minimize clearing charges, port charges, custom duties and tax for the contents. I-FREED would like to thank the various officials in the respective ministries, ADIC staff and Mr. Dudley Rajapakse from Houston for their assistance with this task. As stipulated by the Ministry of Social Services, the contents will be distributed in the District of Galle in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. Pictures and more details of the recipients of the contents to follow.
Update : 06/15/2005 CST School supplies that were sent in the container were distributed to schools in Galle. The below pictures are from Southlands College, where the main distribution took place.
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