Big wheels carry big dreams
Until recently, more than 60 children packed into the back of an old pickup truck to get to school.
MAE SOT, Thailand -- For some elementary school children living in remote regions of Thailand, rising at 5 a.m. is the easy part.
To get to school, they must walk for over an hour on rocky terrain to reach rough, muddy roads. There they meet their school bus - a heavy duty, six-wheeled truck. The children ride the truck for a bumpy 20 to 40 minutes to a village school, where they eat meals and attend class.
Without the truck, made possible in part by Orphan's Promise, they simply couldn't go to school.
Until this summer, the school's bus was an old pickup truck with limited seating and a tendency to break down. Elpis School co-founder Rosalyn Sanchez sought to replace the truck with a roomy and reliable vehicle. After collecting 90 percent of the money needed for a new truck, Sanchez sent out a plea for the remaining balance.
Thanks to a gift from Orphan’s Promise, students now have a roomy and reliable vehicle to transport them to school.
Orphan's Promise answered the call with a $3,000 donation, enough to purchase the truck and carry many more students safely to the Elpis School.
With 287 students, the school is packed. Most of the children are Karen refugees, native Burmese who have escaped severe persecution by fleeing to neighboring Thailand. Some voluntarily live apart from their families for the rare opportunity to attend school.
Almost all of the students rely on the new truck for transportation.
"We needed a strong vehicle to reach them," said Sanchez. "The children are scattered and their villages are too far from each other."
Many of the students live in remote farms in the jungle or on the mountains.
The new truck cut the number of routes to these locales in half, allowing school to start earlier and students to arrive there more quickly. The children also ride in comfort, compared to when they were packed, 60 at a time, in the old truck. "The truck [is] awesome and really great," said Sanchez. "Our children love it and they are so happy …"
HOW YOU CAN HELP: Operation Blessing's Orphan's Promise is helping to transform the futures of children like these by providing clean water, education assistance, nutritional feeding programs, medical care and more. Please make an online contribution toward OBI's Orphan's Promise today and help us continue to reach those in need.
