HELD OVER!
NEW LOCATION!
Due to the phenomenal success of Saturday's bake sale, we're doing it again!
Sunday, March 13
8 AM 'til 2 PM
at Taco Xpress, 2529 South Lamar
Press Release
Austin, Texas, March 7, 2005 - On Saturday, March 12, a bake sale will be held in the South Lamar Shopping Center to benefit tsunami victims in Arugambay, Sri Lanka, a small coastal village in southeastern Sri Lanka. Volunteers from Zilker Elementary, the South Lamar Neighborhood Association, AustinMama.com and across the city will sell baked goods in an effort to raise funds to help fishing families rebuilt homes, boats and their lives. One hundred percent of funds raised will go towards a legally established trust. The South Lamar Shopping Center is located in the 1000 block of South Lamar. The grassroots fundraising project is still seeking volunteers to bake and sell. A meeting to make signs and coordinate will be held on Friday the 11th at 6pm at the Austin Shambhala Meditation Center at 1702 S. 5th St.
Austinite Jennifer Marine was moved to organize the bake sale after seeing similar efforts around the country on television immediately following the disaster. She focused her efforts on Sri Lanka after hearing local details about the devastation through an old classmate living in Colombo, Nazreen Philips Sansoni. An estimated 3,000 people were killed in Arugambay.
Nazreen's cousin, Andre Tissera, owns one of three surviving hotels in the region (The Hideaway), which was used as a temporary Red Cross headquarters after the tsunami. Tissera and his wife set up the Ulle Relief Trust to create a work program and manage donations for locals coming in from family and friends. "We know most of people in the area quite intimately. We'll be able to work directly with them in order to have a complete understanding of the direction of their future lives, and help them achieve their ultimate goal of self sufficiency and financial stability," states Tissera, who purchased land in Arugambay in 1976.
Donations thus far have been used to purchase nets, a well pump, supplies for tube wells, and food. Future donations will be applied towards one or more coastal boats (which employs ten people), a motorcycle to transport fish to market and household kitchen items. Underwear and bras are still desperately needed. Marine will be sending off a box of new, donated underwear to Sri Lanka at the end of the month if anyone would like to contribute.
The majority of the bake sale volunteers have come from Zilker Elementary, where Marine's daughter attends and the South Lamar Neighborhood Association. Volunteers Megan Parke and Theresa Melomo have been instrumental in organizing enthusiastic parents and children wanting to help. In the words of Zilker Principal Bren McCullar, "It's exciting to see our community pull together to support other communities around the world." The bake sale will be held in collaboration with another grassroots fundraiser, a benefit concert given by children's music band, Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang on April 9 in Los Angeles, California and ongoing benefits at the Barefoot Gallery, an art gallery in Colombo owned by Sansoni and husband Dominic. "A neighborhood doesn't have to be defined by geographic boundaries." states South Lamar Neighborhood Association President Carol Gibbs. "It's unfortunate that it takes a disaster on the other side of the world to remind us that there are bigger problems and greater needs than our own - but if that's what it takes, then we need to respond."
In an interesting coincidence, the property manager of the South Lamar Shopping Center, Mr. T.H. Worthington was in Colombo, Sri Lanka on December 26, the day of the tsunami. Only it was exactly sixty years earlier, in 1944, while he was a radio board operator on a Navy ship during World War II!
Special thank yous to Krista UmScheid Mt. Joy and Bryan King for help with publicity, Ridgway's Reprographics for banner donation, Wendy Cook for website development, T.H. Worthington for the great location, Megan Parke and Theresa Melomo for help organizing, Zilker Principal Bren McCullar for generous support, the South Lamar Neighborhood Association, and of course, to everyone who's volunteered thus far.