Due to the generosity of Plenty’s donors, a total of $8,447 was raised in 2005 for the India Tsunami Project. The money was utilized as follows (summarized from reports by project liaison David Purviance):

BLESS is a local NGO in Cuddalore (a coastal city in the state of Tamil Nadu) that has worked for 17 years with coastal villages that were devastated by the tsunami. BLESS was largely overlooked by the large international NGOs who arrived on the tsunami scene with loads of money, lots of template solutions, but no understanding of the local people and their priorities. Following their recommendations, we supported two projects:

Playgrounds for children: Plenty funds built playgrounds in two villages to help ease the trauma the children in particular had suffered in this horrific disaster. Each playground included two swing sets, two merry-go-rounds, two teeter-totters, one slide, two parallel bars, one rainbow climbing ladder, and one horizontal bar. The villages included Chinnoor, a population of 1,015 which had 30 tsunami deaths and 502 homes destroyed or damaged; and Velangiriyan Pettai, a population of 1,676, which had lost five people and had 119 homes destroyed or damaged. Our donation for this project was $2,870. David reported “When I visited the completed playgrounds last month I was extremely pleased to see the children playing happily, with smiles on their faces once again”.

Pregnant Women’s Project: The pregnant women in villages that had been devastated by the tsunami had been swept up by the waves (there were three separate waves), had swallowed lots of salt water and had been thrown about, colliding with trees and houses. Many of them had lost one or more of their children to the tsunami. A few had lost their husbands. They suffered both physical and emotional damage and they were now about to bring new life into a world that suddenly seemed rather hostile and unpredictable. With $5,577 in funds channeled through Plenty, and additional funds provided by a few other donors, a project is now ongoing to provide pre- and post-natal medical care, nutritional food and vitamin supplements, vaccinations, psychological counseling, and special needs assistance to 276 pregnant women and 391 nursing mothers living in 25 villages that were devastated by the tsunami.