My Volunteer Trip To India

Dear friends and family,          

I’m in INDIA ! 

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read about my volunteer journey and hopefully donating what you can to help out. 

 My plan is to be here until mid August and volunteer with the Louisiana Himalaya Association (LHA)  www.lhainfo.org.  For the first part of the trip I'll be volunteering with a group of medical students and an MD from New Orleans, Dr Suchin . We are doing a medical/dental and eye care program for the Tibetan Refugees. I’m learning a whole bunch about medical stuff and the Tibetan people are great. After this first project is done, I'll be focusing on environmental projects and teaching English and basic computer skills.

A few days ago I met up with Neil Guidry who was one of the founders of LHA back in 1997. He has been a family friend my whole life, so I've grown up hearing stories about what he was doing in India. I always hoped to one day come, and now I’m here helping out!  The main place we are volunteering is called Dharamsala, which is up in the Himalayas, and is the home of The Dalai Lama.

LHA is completely volunteer-staffed, and donation-funded, so all us volunteers pay our own expenses. This includes roundtrip airfare (about $1250) plus food, housing, and overland transportation on buses and trains and rickshaws!  The whole trip will cost me about $3000. I've been saving up and have enough for airfare and a little bit more. Any help you can give will be much appreciated.

My Goal:
I set my goal at $2850 with hopes that if I raise more than I need, then I'll have money to donate to the projects I’m working with. Once I hit $1650, the rest can be donations to help some of these people to get glasses, dental work, and medical care. Many of the people we are seeing really don’t have enough money to go to the dentist or the doctor or to get glasses. With my savings, I am already halfway there!

The idea of learning from a completely different culture halfway around the world is very exciting for me, and I promise to bring back lots of photos and stories to share with all of you! 

Please help me to reach my goal?

Thank you for your generosity!