Welcome Letter

Welcome to our website.

I've been very fortunate in my life to have been blessed with wonderful family, friends, opportunities and health. Being an empty nester with more free time than I knew what to do with in 1999, I was anxious to figure out how to spend my new found free time. I backpacked without plans and alone in Southeast Asia to give myself think time. At one point in my travels, I stepped off a cargo boat after traveling two days down the Mekong River. I found before me the town of Luang Prabang, the old royal capital of Laos, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is home of over 30 incredibly ornate Buddhist temples. People are unimposing and welcoming. Say "Sabaidee" (Hello) to anyone of any age and you will receive a friendly smile and a "Sabaidee" in return. I call Luang Prabang Shangri Las. The Shanghai Daily called it Paradise. Yet, traveling minutes outside of this town of 30,000 people, I was distressed to be in the midst of poverty.

I visited homes without electricity, running water, toilets. Children were tattered, dirty, hungry and sick. Primary school girls were missing school because they were babysitting preschool aged siblings or fetching drinking water for their family by walking distances of up to a mile. While these conditions were pervasive, it wasn't right. While I couldn't expect these children to have the life of an American child, they deserved to have the hope, chance and choice for a more productive life.

In 2003, I saw children who worked seven to fourteen hours a day every day in Phnom Penh city dump.  They were looking for recyclables to earn cash for their family.  They trudged atop 20 feet of sinking, steaming, smoking garbage.  The stench is intolerable for anyone visiting for more than 5 minutes.  Yet, these children are working in this stench daily and competing with adults to get the 'good stuff' to bring home ten to sixty cents a day.

Very quietly, we started Give Children A Choice in 2002 and began to help these children. We developed heart-warming relationships with government leaders in Laos and are now playing a developmental role in helping the children's future through education and good health.  In Cambodia, we have taken children from their hopeless, endless days in the dump one at a time and put them in school full-time.  We are now partnered with A New Day Cambodia to place our children in their living facilities, where they are well cared for.

Explore our website. Learn about our progress. Read about our principles. Help these children. Know where your donations go. Visit our children and visit our schools.

Dori