Contributing to school meals & new dormitory coming soon!
We have been visiting Baan Mae Tob Tai School in Mae Sariang town for quite a few times over the past two years. This is a small school, nestled in a valley, surrounded by mountains in Mae Hong Son province. Many of the students come from poor conditions. Therefore, they are lacking many of the privileges that majority of students in Western countries can take for granted.
Donating food supplies and children’s clothes
Since our first visit at Baan Mae Tob Tai School back in 2017, we have been contributing to their school meals on monthly basis. We have been doing this by donating 25kg of rice each month. In Thai schools the budget reserved for school meals is generally very tight. Hence, additional support is often needed to ensure that each student is provided with healthy and filling lunch.
However, in this school, lunch is not the only meal of the day. There are 12 students who stay at the school dormitory during the terms. Therefore, in Mae Tob Tai’s kitchen, the school meals are cooked three times a day. Ahead of our most recent visit, the teachers requested for our help to fill up their stocks of common food ingredients. They requested for basic supplies that would last long, such as dried and canned food, spices, cooking oil and sauces.
Even though this was our fifth time bringing donations to this school, the politeness and gratefulness of the students and teachers just never cease to amaze us. After a very warm welcome, we started unloading our cars and all kids wanted to do their share in helping us.
In addition to food supplies, we also brought some second hand children’s clothes. We spent a while to show the clothes to the children, and match each piece with their new owners. Needless to say, the students were very pleased with their new clothes, donated by our guests from all around the world.
At the end, we took a nice group picture as a memory of the event. This time, however, we had one more surprise left for the children.
Building a new dormitory
Over the past few visits it had become obvious that the school needs massive help with the kids staying at the dormitory. The current building was way too small to accommodate 12 students. Not to mention that there had been many requests for new placements from families living far away in the mountains. To make things worse, during heavy rains the bottom floor of the dormitory floods.
We are pleased to inform that to ensure that these and many more children can safely stay at the school grounds, Elephant Hills will build a brand-new dormitory for Baan Mae Tob Tai School. During this visit we did some initial measuring at the planned construction site and are glad to report that we will be introducing the new dormitory soon.
Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting new project!
