Sarah Shirley, Marcella Andrews and Doreen Bakstad are getting ready to fly to Cambodia to help in a children’s home. Submitted photo
By Neil Horner - Parksville Qualicum Beach News
Published: October 28, 2010
via CAAI
It’s not easy doing the right thing, even if it’s what your heart tells you to do.
Marcella Andrews knows that from personal experience — an experience she and her two friends are going through right now.
Andrews, along with partners-in-aid is gearing up to jet off to Cambodia in the near future to lend a hand to a group of orphans — an adventure she never dreamed she would undertake just a year ago.
That, however, was before her friend, Doreen Bakstad, returned from a visit to an orphanage in Cambodia and detailed the desperate need of the children there.
Bakstad said she was on a trip to India when she heard about the Kindness in Action project at the Peaceful Children’s Home, where children under 13 years of age are rescued from the sex trade, extreme poverty and abandonment.
“I was able to come home through Cambodia, so in February I spent three and a half weeks there and put together a library for the children with money from a philanthropist in Vancouver,” Bakstad said. “I came home from that motivated to do some fundraising for the children’s food and for extracurricular education.”
That food, she said, is important, as the 56 children at the home may be incredibly motivated to learn, but they don’t always have enough nourishment to allow them to do that properly.
“This is like a private home, without outside funding, unless people make donations,” Bakstad said. “I came home and started talking to people about my experience and the fact they don’t have enough food.”
One of the people she talked to was Andrews.
“What inspired me was a presentation by Doreen and Len Walker,” she said. “I was breathless from the pictures and the story. I knew I’ve always wanted to do humanitarian aid my whole life and now I’m in my upper 50s and I thought, when is someday going to come?”
Andrews told Bakstad she wanted to be involved in her plan to return to Cambodia this November to follow up on her work with the library and the push for improved nutrition. That’s when the nightmares started.
“That night I was awakened by nightmares, because it was way too scary,” she said. “As the days go by though, I freak out at night about breaking out of my Canadian comfort zone and in the morning I take another step towards the goal.”
Along with the third member of the teama, Sarah Shirley, Andrews and Bakstad are raising money for their upcoming aid adventure, holding a series of events in the Oceanside area.
The next of these is slated for Nov. 11 at the Tigh-Na-Mara
news@pqbnews.com
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