Day 1 - Sunday 7th February

The great thing about travelling is that you get to experience a whole new world. The worst thing is the travelling itself. So about 16 hours after getting up On Saturday, we arrived, bleary eyed at our base for the next 2 weeks at 4am on Sunday morning. We managed to stay awake long enough for a bit of breakfast before snoozing for a few hours. The rest of the day was pretty much reconnecting with our bodies and adjusting to new time zone but we did make a start on discussing the things we needed to do and so the start of an agenda for the next fortnight began to take shape.

New Year - New Look

To mark the new year, the blog has had a mini makeover... hope you like the new look.  But it's also in readiness for our next trip to Sri Lanka - in 2 weeks time we'll be back in Ratmalana to catch up with what's been going on.  At last week's trustees meeting, we set ourselves some challenging objectives for the trip including:

• Checking up on the exisiting projects especially to find out if the new nets are working
• Investigating whether we could set up a women's sewing co-operative
• Research whether we could use a local community centre for projects
• Identify children who would benefit from further tuition
• Follow up on the children who left the school last summer

BYOK disco is back!

BYOK is back for the first time in 2010.

Fun for kids, just as much fun for grown ups, its a chance to raise money for kids in Sri Lanka (see www.fodad.co.uk).

A kids disco in a grown up venue, with face painting, fun and games and a chance for dads to DJ, in between dancing to our resident kids DJ Mat.

Its £4.50 for kids(0 - 8 yrs welcome) and FREE for adults

Sunday, 31 January 2010

14:30 - 17:30

The Good Ship

Help us raise funds when you shop

Have you heard about easyfundraising yet? It’s the easiest way to help raise money for Friends of Della and Don. If you already shop online with retailers such as Next, Argos, John Lewis, Comet, iTunes, eBay or HMV, then we need you to sign up to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/dellaanddon for free to raise money while you shop!

So how does it work? You shop directly with the retailer as you would normally, but if you sign up to http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/dellaanddon for free and use the links on the easyfundraising site to take you to the retailer, then a percentage of whatever you spend comes directly to us at no extra cost to yourself. So if you spend £100 with M&S online, we get £5 cashback from your purchase. £100 spent with Amazon raises £2.50 for us, £100 with WH Smith puts £2.00 in our pocket, and so on. easyfundraising features over 2,000 retailers, and some of the donations can be as much as 15% of the cost of your purchase.

This service is FREE to use, and what’s more, joining easyfundraising will give you access to hundreds of exclusive discounts and voucher codes, so not only will you be helping us, you’ll be saving money yourself.

And that’s not the only way to raise money. Are you one of the 6.4m people that use a search engine every day? If so then why not raise money for Friends of Della and Don while you search?

http://dellaanddon.easysearch.org.uk combines the results of several search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing and Ask to ensure you can always find what you’re looking for. But the fantastic thing is that EVERY TIME you search, half a penny is raised for Friends of Della and Don. That’s right – you don’t even have to buy anything! Almost 17 million searches have been made using easyearch and each one has raised money for good causes.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/dellaanddon today and start raising money for Friends of Della and Don simply by shopping and searching online….what could be easier?

Happy Holidays!!!!

Dear Friends,

On December 26th, it will be 5 years since the devastating Tsunami changed our lives. We started 2009 in Sri Lanka and we had every intention of being back there now. But as many of you know, fate took a hand and Don is now recovering from the surgery he had in late September. He is improving really well and we hope to join our friends in Sri Lanka early in the New Year.

We did visit in the summer and with your help and generosity we:

• arranged the continued supply of daily meals for all the primary and nursery school children in the village
• distributed the contents of 15 boxes and 2 suitcases of donations to children at the school, people attending the clinic and the villagers
• bought new shoes for all the children
• arranged to ay for the continued education of seriously deprived children
• supplied a new uniform for every child at the school
• provided cricket bats, balls and badminton equipment for the children to use
• made arrangements for a prize of a bicycle for the child who achieves the highest attendanceat school
• took over 80 orpahned girls out for a day at the beach; their only trip outside since our last visit in December 2008
• provided English lessons to the pupis at the village school
• ordered musical instruments so that the children could learn music
• arranged weekly music lessons at the orphanage
• provided funds to support th Medical Clinic so that they can employ a doctor and buy drugs
• handed over letters to some of the orphans from pen-pals in the UK
• provided funding for the children unable to afford the fare for a school trip
• made arrangements for a girl to receive extra tuition and be looked after whilst her recently-widowed father works
• hosted a sports and games day.

You can see lots of photos and some video clips on the website.

Wherever you are and whomever you are with, have a wonderful time

Della & Don

Saul's Photo Project

Back in the summer (remember that?) Saul handed out some disposable cameras to four of the kids in the village school. He asked them to take photos of things important in their lives - where they lived, their families and friends. They brought the cameras back and when the photos were developed, talked through the pictures with him. Takes a look at the amazing results at this website and find out more about their moving stories and hopes for the future.

T-rrific!

Well, the T-party was an incredible success and well attended. It has raised over £350 which Macmillan Publishers will match! And that's in addition to the £400 raised at a similar event earlier in the year so thanks to everyone for their generosity and support.

It's nice to know that as we approach the 5th anniversary of the Tsunami, people still care and with this money, FODAD's work will be able to continue to offer help well into 2010.

Chari-T Party

FODAD was chosen as Charity of the Year at Nature Publishing Group. On Thursday 26 November they are hosting a charity tea party in their building where senior managers will be serving tea and coffee. There will also be a huge amount of cakes available cooked by at least 28 members of staff from all departments. Della will also be doing a short presentation on what FODAD has achieved and how donations have kept that work going and the latest 5th Anniversary film will be played.

Thanks to all involved especially Michelle and Karly for organising the event.

Nichola Did It !!!!!

Great news from Nichola who completed Sunday's New York marathon in 4 hrs 43 mins. She said it was a difficult course in places but the atmosphere was out of this world and best of all, so far she's raised over £2,300 for FODAD.

We're really chuffed for her and thank her so much for all her efforts.

If you'd like to reward her, there's still time to contribute via her JustGiving page.

Tks again Nichola. x

5 Things to do This Weekend

1. Get Fit: Sponsor Nichola for the NYC Marathon. She’s aiming to raise enough money to feed the school chikdren for a whole year and has climbed steadily to reach 42% of her target of £3000 before the event takes place on 1^st November.

2. Go Green: If you’ve got any inkjet cartridges lying around or old mobile phones, register with Each One Counts . They’ll send a bag and all you need to do is send the item back to them in the FREEPOST envelope. FODAD gets the value of your item and you get entered into a draw where you could win a bike.

3. Watch “Sri Lanka’s Got Talent”: Check out the latest music video on Facebook: this is the first public performance of the St Mary’s School Band. WARNING: turn down the volume if you are of a nervous disposition!

4. Christmas Shopping: Struggling to think of what to buy for those who have everything? How about a personalised mug, calendar or T-shirt personalised for you? They’re very cheap and unique. Send an email to mail@friendsofdellaanddon.com to find out more.

5. Relax and watch a video: It’s nearly 5 years since the Della and Don’s Tsunami experience in Sri Lanka and the beginning of the enduring journey to make a difference. A classic tale of despair, triumph over adversity with a touch of the feel good factor thrown in (..and it’s just over 3 mins long)

6. OK, so I said only 5, but as you’re online anyway and have got this far, click on this link and make a donation. Just a couple of clicks will make a huge difference and you’ll enjoy your weekend even more!

Thank you