Where? Siem Reap, Cambodia. When? July 2012. What? Food for 1000 people. Clothes, laundry detergent, soaps, paper, pens, books for the children of the BWCO orphanage.
This was the first mission of Feed Starving People. Actually, this mission was the foundation mission of Feed Starving People. It was in 2012 when Tim’s (CEO and Chief Dreamer of Feed Starving People) world trip was coming to an end and when he felt, that it was time to give back. He raised about about 1500$ of donations from his friends and spent five days to help the poorest of the poorest people of Cambodia.
The Mission in detail
Day 1
This was my first day/attempt to feed hungry Cambodians… with not much clue how to go about it… I just hired a tuk tuk driver and directed him very sternly to take me to the villages where people are REALLY REALLY POOR! He understood that I did not want to go to the “touristy slums”… We found a poor village and I picked what looked like the family that needed the most help and he explained to them that I wanted to take them all to go eat somewhere. From that restaurant I also ordered a lot of food “take away”and we delivered it to a very struggling family in a near by village. This was just a test run on how I might learn to best spend the money I had. Every day my goals and numbers got bigger and bigger. On day one we fed twelve people, plus another family of five, and a mother got a one month supply of formula for her baby 🙂Tim Bradley
A local Cambodian at my hostel got word of this project and asked if I would be interested in helping an orphanage that is in dyer need of help right now… Of course I did… I had the guy who runs the orphanage “Best Way for Children Organization (BWCO)” pick me up the next morning. When he arrived he asked what I want to do… I had Mr. Ly take me to the best market that the locals shop at. We bought a ton of necessary foods to feed the 30 kids in this community. When that was done, I said “Can we find more kids? It’s only 3pm and I have more money!”. We then got two tuk tuks and went to this other poor village… We put ten kids in each tuk tuk and headed for a restaurant. When that was done, those kids kicked my ass in soccer 🙂Tim Bradley
Day 3
Day 3 started off back at the market with Mr Ly… The kids at the BWCO desperately needed some new clothes, laundry detergent, soaps, paper, pens, books, and whatever else came to mind. It was like Christmas watching these kids get all these things… they were so excited. Can you imagine… getting a second shirt to have? After serving lunch to them again, we made our way to a far off village. In this village we led 110 people to a nearby restaurant and fed everyone a generous portion of beef noodle soup and a bottle of water. At the end of the day, I made my way to Angkor Wat temple and watched the sun set over a temple to my left and the full moon rise over a temple on my right… it was like God’s gift to me saying 2good work, now enjoy your quiet mind and loving heart” and this enormous feeling of purpose and peace overwhelmed m. iLmLTim Bradley
Finding a 4th legit poor location was surprisingly difficult (trying to avoid poor scams). But we found it… and delivered enough groceries to this village, where one member each from like 8-10 families showed up to take home their share of goods. This project was becoming like groundhog day on Christmas! After that, I returned to the orphanage to give an English lesson. I told the kids that if they studied hard with me for one hour, I would take them out for pizza and a movie… none of them have ever had a slice of pizza or seen a movie til this day. I was trying to take them to Batman, but they ran up to this 3-d 15 minute movie like game with moving chairs and stuff… they were screaming in excitement for this event. It was a tremendous gift for them!Tim Bradley
Day 5 was a great last day to the Feed Hungry Cambodians project. We went on a long trip to a very poor far off village. The journey was most the battle. And as usual the faces were priceless. It was a big shipment and held over a small village, maybe a hundred people for a week. I can’t thank everyone who supported and donated for this project enough. I have done lots of good deeds along this journey, but these five days of constant service was the volunteer project that I was looking for when I left USA, and it wouldn’t have been this good without your help 🙂Tim Bradley