Yes I guess it has been that long. You know to be honest sometimes when things get crazy here, it really is hard to write or better said, type it out…….

Since I have been away for www.stuandthekids.org, I have been sooooooo busy. I took some time off from volunteering and doing charity work everyday to do some actual work and make some money so I can continue on this path. I got my DREAM JOB! I had the amazing opportunity to work on my favorite show of all time, SURVIVOR, maybe you have heard of it?????? I was the breakfast and lunch Sous Chef, working from 4 AM to 3 PM, 6 days a week, cooking for the 300 plus crew. It truly was an amazing experience to be in the Philippines and working with the most talented group of people I have ever met. Everyone worked so hard and wanted to do the best job they could and this was so helpful to push me everyday to cook the best food I could. The production takes such good care of everyone, planning parties, sporting events, art shows, a film festival and they even helped out with giving back to the community.

One day they had a boat race with locals involved and the money raised from that went to a local school to get every kid a back pack to carry all of their school supplies. At the Art Show most art was auctioned off and that money went to a local hospital. There was also a Raincoat Fund which was headed up by my new friend James and myself. This fund got even kid and teacher at another local school a raincoat as well as some other learning supplies. Everyone from the crew donated and made all of these projects a great success. I know the locals, kids, teachers and doctors were grateful as well so was I. To see so much love and care by so many great people was just amazing, I was overwhelmed with joy.

Did I mention I needed spinal surgery? I know I didn’t but now I am. I had so much fun seeing how the show is made and even had the opportunity to get involved with challenges and such. And that is were I hurt my back, yup trying out one of the challenges. I knew it right away, the pain was bad but I kept it cool and thought I would be fine but a few days later it got worse. After getting jostled around on a short boat ride about 4 days after that it was time to fly to Manila and get it checked out. After an MRI I was told I needed to go under the knife, I was scared but I had great support from the Production and Medical Team. This is where I give a BIG shout out to Dr. Erika, she was great. SHe dealt with the hospital staff, production and even brought me food for even meal, again, thank you so much Erika. And this happened on my birthday and when I got out of recovery my room was full of Sushi and Pizza! Awesome……

OK so now to fill you in on my old charity, Hilltribe in the City, we had to shut down. I won’t bore you with all of the confusing details so here is the short version. When you volunteer here in Thailand and have a work permit, like I have. It clearly states what you are here to do and what charity you work for and that id ALL you are allowed to do. My work permit says I can volunteer for the Wat Don Chan and here I was having my own charity and working toward making it a full foundation. One night while collecting donations at the Sunday Night Walking Street here in Chiang Mai, like I had done for almost a year, I was approached by a man and he said he was the “one” that signed all work permits. I called my lawyer right away and he said go home and come see me this week. I was told until Hilltribe in the City became a foundation, I could no longer collect donations and if I continued with the charity I could maybe have to pay a fine of 85,000 baht ($2830) and I could lose my work permit and visa. Now this might not happen but it could and if I lost my visa I would have to leave and would not be able to volunteer here any more. There are several other happenings that took place that added to the reasons we needed to discuss our continuing or not.

After lot’s of thought about the charities future, financial future, the kids, donations, legal fees, etc. the decision was to shut down Hilltribe in the City, I was crushed and still am, I really miss the kids so much. I know what we did for them the pervious year will stick with them forever as well what they did for me, I will never forget. I just really wanted to do right by the folks that supported us. The other thing here is that having a non-profit charity, needing an accountant, a lawyer, board members, official visitors, blah, blah, blah, took away a lot of the time to do the actual work, which is why I do this.

The good news is now I am just one guy, working alone on several smaller projects and I only need to answer to the people that support these projects. I say smaller but for the kids that will receive the benefits from this do not think they are so small, these things will help change their lives as well as their families lives forever. I am now in Chiang Mai and have been gathering all of the information I need to go back to the states for 2 months and do some fundraising. I will also do some work and have some time to see friends and family which I am so excited about. Back to the information gathering; first I will be raising fund to help 3 kids continue their college education. Tanagone, Soreset and Tamasot were students of mine at the Wat Don Chan for the whole time I have been here in Thailand and they were the top 3 students. After graduating they were going to get jobs to save for school but sadly the money they could get would be needed to live their daily lives with little extra to really get into school. So I said what if I could help by collecting donations to help you out?

Tanagone was thrilled and having such good grades he was able to get into one of the best Universities here in Chiang Mai so I paid for his first semester and gave him my motorcycle to get to and from school. For Tanagone I am looking to get funds for his next 3 years of tuition, school uniforms, books, 2 extra curricular activities per month, 2 meals for everyday he is at school and gas money to get back and forth to school. This cost is $2000 (60,000 baht) per year so that is $6000 (180,000 baht) for 3 years. For the other 2 boys Sorest and Tamasot that are going to a Technical College the cost for their rent (they share a small room near the school), 1 meal per day at school, books uniforms and tuition is $1800 (54,000 baht) per year or $5400 (162,000 baht) for 3 years and this is for the 2 of them total.

I am now working on having 4 fundraisers to achieve  these goals to help the 3 of them, 1 in Delaware, 1 in Philly, 1 in New Jersey and 1 in Los Angeles. If you would like to help by contributing you can just hit the paypal button on this site to do so. I have a few other small projects that I will be working on while here and they are to continue teaching at the Wat Don Chan 3-4 days per week, helping to teach Novice Monks (young Monks) at the Wat Doi Suket by teaching them how to cook for themselves with once a month classes. There are a few other “irons in the fire” but these need to wait until I come back here at the beginning of October so I will fill you in more once I know what is going on. Mainly I want to make sure the 3 boys are taken care of so they can get the education that they deserve to better their lives as well as the live of their families………

Thank you so much for taking the time to read about my projects and the kids. Peace to you all, take care. -Stu