Fund Raising Garage Sale in Grafton ! Sat, 23 August

A friend in Grafton, Marg McKenna is having a garage sale and decided she would like to donate the proceeds from the sale to our Cambodian Fund.  Marg has a lot of knick knacks that have been collected over the years, as well as items from relatives who have left "stuff" behind and she wants to clear the lot.  Come on over to her place, 20 Bent St, Grafton, near the main Clarence River bridge, on Saturday 23 August in the morning and help her clear her garage and help the Cambodian Organisations we support with our fund raising.

We'll update this post with a photo of the setup as Marg lays items out ! So check back on the website if you want to see what's happening !

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Fund Raising Charity Garage Sale

Done and dusted !

It went well and although the numbers were down a little on two years ago, we have raised about $800 with a few last minute sales still trickling in from some of the left over items.  Thanks to our biggest customer, this sale and the last one two years ago, Daniel from Glenn's Ck Rd (I promise not to tell Sophie)

Viola, Sunny and Letisha trying out the walking machine !

Snapping up the bargains

and a link here to heaps of other photo's

Thank-you's

There are so many people to thank and if we've missed anyone, apologies.

• Helping man the stall: the wonderful Kim, Jenny, Lilith, Viola and Georgie.
• Helping set up the day before: Jenny D and Ruth and many others.
• Cleaning up: Laena, Ruth and Janelle
• Musicians: Sebastian, Clayton and Laena on drums !
• The Clarence Valley Council for allowing us to get rid of some of the items that no one would take
• The Daily Examiner for doing the story on the sale
• The Hall Committee for waving the Hall Fee for all our fund raising events so far

and a huge thank you to everyone who donated their treasures to be sold and everyone who attended.

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"Garage Sale" in the local Newspaper

"Garage Sale" in the local Newspaper

Newspaper Article

Toni did a recent phone interview for the local Newspaper with an article that made it in on Tuesday 7 Oct.

You can access the full article here  Thanks to the Daily Examiner for that.

Just a minor change, the handsome fellow is not Trevor but a lovely Irishman who helps out in Cambodia. The photo was taken on the steps of the Romdual School which is the small rural school  in Cambodia where local Nymboidian's Richard and Jenny are paying the wages of the second teacher.  I have included the original photo below:

TL: Camra (local Khmer translator), Toni and Audrey
BL: Sarin (head teacher), Ciaran and Donna

Here's a link to an album of photo's from a visit to Romdual School on the Ream River for those interested,
and hopefully the fund raiser will be a great day this Sunday 13 October

Call for Volunteers to Help at local Fun Run

We have been approached by one of the organisers of the Jacaranda Fun Run to help field a few volunteers.  Volunteers won't have to run. ha ha ! but will be needed to "man" the timing tent, hand out water to competitors on the course etc.  In return they will provide us with a donation.  If anyone would like to volunteer, we'd love to hear from them, as the more people we can field for the event, the more money they donate to our worthy cause.  The Fun Run is part of the Clarence Valley Jacaranda Festival.


Of course if you want to participate, that would be awesome as well.  You can read more about the Fun Run here

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quick thank you

Garage Sale - 13 October (update)

We have had some awesome support for the Garage (Jumble) Sale coming up at the Nymboida Hall on 13 October but let the donations of bric-a-brac and no longer wanted items around the house flow in.  You can drop them down the hall on the Saturday 12 Oct in the afternoon where I will be setting up or contact me via the Contacts page on this site or phone on 6649 4263

Donations

Interesting this school holidays we had a random Dad and Son from Brisbane turn up at our place as they were looking for somewhere to ride their mountain bikes.  He had been camping with his Son at Nymboida NP. For those of you who are unaware we have a  reasonably extensive trail network on our property that you can read about here if you're interested.   After explaining the trails were on our private property he was crestfallen.  We said why not and allowed him and his Son to ride and invited him to come back this way again if he wanted to.  He was taken with our place and when Toni started talking to him about the big pile of items on our porch, explaining what they were for he kindly donated $10... Not a huge amount but for a  total stranger, amazing... so thank you Craig Humphrey from Brisbane !

The second one was a random email from a friend, Jaye Gilchrist who has donated several times in the past and did so again today... a huge thank you to Jaye and the Gilchrist Family


Our Donations page is here

Finances

With the complications of keeping track of finances via Spreadsheets getting the better of us, we have finally decided to move the finances to a bookkeeping program, we settled on a FOSS (Free and Open Source) program, called GnuCash.  We will publish accounts every 6 months online for viewing, along with bank statements which are received every six months .  If anyone does want more updated information we have no trouble providing that to them just contact us via the Contacts page

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Garage Sale Coming up

Garage Sale

While we haven't set a date yet, it would be great for people to start casting an eye over stuff in the back of the cupboard or tucked away in the garage and if they don't really need it, please consider donating it to the Annual Fundraising Garage Sale.  Long time followers might remember the last one, which was a great success.  If your memory, like mine, is getting a little vague, you can check out the one we had in 2011 here

We have had a few people donate stuff already, many thanks to them the veranda is looking a little cluttered.

Garage Sale Donation on veranda

we want it to look a LOT cluttered !  You can contact me by using the form on the contact page of this site here or you can phone me on (02) 6649 4263

Ongoing Projects

Goodwill

We have several ongoing projects that we keep raising funds for. One of these is coordinated by the staff at the Goodwill Center. We pay for supplies for families who have been identified as high risk. They cannot afford to send their children to school as they need their kids to work to help the family earn a living. The small amount we give them helps enormously.  A huge thanks to Jen and the staff at the Goodwill Center for keeping this going.

Both of these girls attend the center.

We have also committed to paying the annual salary for the English Teacher at Goodwill Center and based on how successful this has been, we will have no hesitation in paying again next year.

Romdual School

We also pay for the second teacher at Romdual School, this is an ongoing commitment, mostly funded completely by two local Nymboidians.

We have a myriad of other smaller ongoing projects we also need funds for.  We would love to give more support but to do that, we obviously need more funds !   All of the funds go directly to projects in Cambodia with none being used for administration costs which has been identified as a concern of those donating.

Direct Support

We also act as intermediaries with locals who wish to work directly with various organisations we have supported in the past.  Recently a local decided to help CHOICE out by donating directly.  If this is something you might like to do, please don't hesitate to contact me to so I can introduce to some of the organisations doing wonderful work in Cambodia.

The organisations we support directly are CHOICE and COLT both in Phnom Penh. The Goodwill Center, Romdual School and  in and on the outskirts of Sihanoukville respectively and the wonderful work Sabine is doing with her organisation Zukunftstenghau at Steung Hav

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