Our May Newsletter celebrates the Easter Season in Kontum and Pleiku. Once again I am reminded about how hard the Sisters and Caregivers work to make this all happen.
In just a few short months, thanks to your help, there has been significant progress made towards resuming normal life in Kontum and Pleiku. The end of the school year is approaching and although there are new social distance guidelines for students of all ages the Sisters and the kids have found ways to incorporate them into their daily life. We have also started new capital improvement projects that will have a huge, long-term impact on their lives. The repair of the girl’s bathroom and the new boys dining hall at VS1 are well under way. The chicken coop and pigpens at VS2 are also well under way. Building plans for the new activity hall at VS3 have been submitted for a building permit. These ambitious projects have only been approved because of your generosity. In the future, we hope to be able to fund a new dormitory at VS4 and a pigpen at VS6. These improvements are in addition to FVSO’s continued focus on basic needs, our top priority every year.
FVSO
Friends
of
Vinh Son
Fund Raising
This has been a difficult year for many. Our donations are well below previous years at this time and well below our planned budget. But there is a way you can help through Amazon Smile
AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support FVSO, at no cost to you. Shop at smile.amazon.com, and find the same convenient experience with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to FVSO. Just type in the Vinh Son Montagnard Orphanage to make your choice. The kids will be the beneficiaries !
All operating expenses paid by the Board of Directors so 100% of your donation goes
to the children.
Some Fun Videos
Clyde Lewandowski
Personal Experiences and Reflections of Vinh Son Montagnards Orphanage
Since 1968, when I spent some time in Vietnam, I've had a soft spot in my heart for Vietnamese kids. Of course, in 1968 we soldiers were all kids. Over the years, I've become the unofficial historian for the artillery battalion that I served with. Back then we did what we could to help the kids and connected with the orphanages that were near our headquarters area. In 2002, after doing some research at the National Archives in Washington D.C., I was able to find the name and address of one of the orphanages in Hue that we had supported and began a quest to find it. Unfortunately that orphanage had closed many years ago.
In 2006, I still had not found a connection to an orphanage in Vietnam that felt right, and was fortunate to have been found by Dennis Coyne and Friends of VSO. The trip to the orphanage at Kontum in February 2007 sealed my fate. The kids, the caregivers and sisters are absolutely the most wonderful people I have ever met. Just seeing their happiness brought tears of joy and I was hooked for life.