When devastating earthquakes hit the country of Nepal in April of 2015, many buildings were destroyed including schools and monasteries. We have strong personal connections with one village, Tumbuk, and want to raise money to help the rebuilding efforts by selling chai at Shining Mountain.
Currently there is a project underway in Tumbuk to rebuild an important monastery and the community hall next to it. These buildings are very important to the village and have so many cracks that they are unsafe to enter. The village comprises 27 households with majority of Sherpa families. Since the village is off the major trekking trail, it hasn’t witnessed any form of development. The village is not yet connected to the road networks like other villages. The village has a pre-primary school. Recently the village was connected with electricity from another village. The villagers still need to walk for an hour to reach Junbesi to get basic health facilities and the children also need to do the long walk to reach school past the primary level.
The entire project costs $13,000 and the community has already raised $7,500 through the government as well as private sources. The Paradise kids and their friends hope to raise the remaining $5500 from local fundraising and help with the finishing touches when we arrive in Nepal in August of 2017.
We are asking the school to allow us to sell chai two afternoons a week for six weeks. We are also asking for use of the school’s large hot beverage containers both for those eight afternoons and on Saturdays for our sales at Bart’s. Our goal is to raise $2000. We will also host some small fundraising dinners at our house and sell chai at Bart’s record shop on the weekend. Pemba Sherpa, who is also from this area, lives in Boulder and owns Sherpa chai company as well as Sherpa’s Restaurant. He has offered to donate all of the chai. We will simply solicit donations for the almond milk and cups on our own.
In turn, we can facilitate education about Nepal and/or the rebuilding efforts of an entire country by Pemba Sherpa. He has amazing slides about the projects that he has already completed and about the country’s great culture and way of life.
Lorna, Lucy and Kai will sell the chai for $3 per 12oz. cup with the help of three six grade friends, yet to be determined. There will also be a donation box at the chai stand as well as donation links on Mission Nepal’s website.
Mission Nepal is a local non-profit run by Pemba Sherpa and Heather Bulk. They are a 501(c)3 and have the capability for online donations. They are administratively holding the project for us to raise the money. We personally know the family who will be on the ground and the community of Tumbuk has their own construction committee to handle to funds responsibly.
Tasks to Complete:
- Proposal acceptance
- Announcements ready for the Weekly Notes and possibly the Community Notes
- Details of chai sales done by the Paradise’s
- Chai pickup
- Table, cups, signs, thermoses.
- Coordinate any education at the school if teachers are interested
If this is alright with the school, we would like to do Tuesdays and Thursdays from February 28 – March 30. And if you can think of any other school events where we can sell our chai, we will be happy to accommodate!
Thanks so much for considering this project! You can pull Lorna out of class to discuss or just email Annika back and I will pass along your answer to the kids.
The Paradise Family (Lorna, Lucy, Kai, Pasang, Will and Annika)
