Tsunami Disaster Relief Fund

Please circulate this press release to your local humanitarian organizations and media. Click here for printable copy. Thank you. For immediate release: January 4, 2005 Plenty International launches Emergency Relief Fundraising to Aid Tsunami Survivors Plenty International, a 30-year-old Tennessee charity with projects around the world is responding to requests for volunteers and financial aid by groups working on the ground in Sri Lanka and India. The December 26 tsunami has left more than 150,000 dead and millions injured and homeless. Plenty volunteers will assist in the construction of temporary shelters, and the distribution of water, food and medical supplies in Sri Lanka. Executive Director Peter Schweitzer said, "Plenty is primarily a development organization, but after 30 years we are connected into an international network of concerned volunteers and grassroots organizations that we can call on for cooperative efforts in times of emergency. We're well aware that because of the magnitude of this disaster, development aid will be needed for months and years to come. We are lining up volunteers who will travel to Sri Lanka as soon as we have the funding in hand." Plenty was founded in 1974 by an alternative intentional community of some five-hundred idealistic young people in Tennessee. Plenty's first international disaster experience came when volunteers responded to an earthquake that devastated Guatemala in February of 1976 leaving 23,000 dead and a million homeless. Initially the volunteers focused on reconstruction of mostly houses and schools, but as they became more aware of the ongoing severe poverty of the Guatemalan Mayan people, Plenty moved its focus more toward development projects such as food and agriculture, primary health care, communications and potable water. After pulling out its disaster-relief teams from Guatemala in 1980, Plenty expanded its programs to the South Bronx (Plenty Ambulance Service), Lesotho (integrated village-scale development including reforestation, primary health care, water, sanitation and agriculture), the Caribbean (soy foods production), American Indian Reservations (community and home gardens), Central America and Mexico (sustainable agriculture, soyfoods production, alternative energy, ecotourism, environmental education, village midwives and micro-economic development). For more information or to send donations contact Plenty International: 931-964-4323 email: plenty@plenty.org website: http://plenty.org Checks should designated "for tsunami relief" and be mailed to: Plenty International PO Box 394 Summertown, TN 38483 Back to tsunami relief page