Visit - The Stratton ABC Foundation Childrens Home Chiang Mai

February 2012
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A Mary Xmas and A Brucey New Year

Dec 192011

Sorry about the lousy title, a little bit of Xmas madness creeping in…its been a long year..:)

This years festive season comes with many positive notes for the Foundation as friends, old and new, step forward with their support.

This post is to say a big thanks to our old friends Mary and Bruce who, having visited our Foundations home last year, recently donated a significant amount of money with a view to sponsoring each and every child here to the tune of 10 pounds a month for the whole year, to include 1 new child who is expected to join us in May.

They have also indicated that they are prepared to consider help with funding extra educational needs for our hardest working students.

I am moved and delighted by this gesture and all here at Stratton House wish to say a huge “Thankyou” and wish the Grays a very enjoyable Festive season and a very very Happy New Year.

Holiday at Home For Yong and May

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Mar 202011

Half way through Saturday afternoon Yong and May1′s Mum turned up to take them home for an extended home visit over the Song Kran period.
Hope you have a nice time girls, miss you already, see you after Song Kran.

Yim…..Kitung

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Feb 142011

She arrived in the night and met the kids early morning 6 weeks ago.

She became an instant hit with her youthful antics

She helped with their homework; she taught them how to knit.

She joined them at the Elephant Camp

She nursed, ate with and loved the children

She worked like a Trojan; she gave so much

She shared smiles to rival the most beautiful Thai

This is my Mum.

The last thing you said when you left was “Take care of them”; with my heart and with my soul I will do my best , and hope that each and every one will grow to be a credit to themselves and to your family name.

Love you Mum, come back soon:)

For all the photos from Mums visit please go to our photobucket album here.

Don’t Go Mum, The Kids Love You

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Feb 072011

My Mothers visit is sadly getting close to its end with just one week left. In a short time she has made a huge impression on the children here.

Having played, taught new skills,(knitting and crochet), and been the loving Grandma she is it won’t just be me that will miss her greatly when she returns home.

Below you will see some of the images that Mum has caught recently on her camera.

Thanks for coming Mum and for all the support , help and love you have given. I can only hope you are proud of what we have acheived here. This is my life now, this is my family, but you will always be my Mum and I love you very much.

Mums Visit Off To A Good Start.

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Jan 092011

So Mum is here for 6 weeks, and so far is loving the time here with the kids.

She arrived after midnight on Tuesday 4th and made a special effort to get up in the morning to be able to say “hi” to the kids before they left for School.

Then the next thing I knew she was doing what Mothers always to….tidying. Try as I might I can’t stop her.

She came armed with a whole box full of gifts for the children and has been enjoying spending time with them, and me, I hope:)

Welcome Grandma..the Preview

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Jan 042011

Everyone here at Stratton House is very excited awaiting the arrival of my Mother, who should be at our door at around midnight tonight, (Jan 4th).

She is visiting for 6 weeks and I can’t wait to see her. Its her second visit to Thailand but her first to see the children who she now considers to all be her “Grandchildren”.

The kids have seen and spoken to her a couple of times already, via Skype, but are all equally excited at the prospect of meeting her in person and being able to say thankyou for various presents she has sent.

As a treat to my Mum when she arrives we went out yesterday and bought a few flowers to plant out, not only hailing her visit but also to hopefully spread and improve the childrens environment to.

The children also worked very hard yesterday on a nice big “Welcome Grandma” sign that we will stick on the wall next to the front door.

I’m so proud of them yet again, the sign is all their own work and I know my Mum will love it to. I am safe to add this post now as she is currently in the air, so the surprise will not be spoilt.

Xmas Visit

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Dec 292010

So thats another Xmas gone and as promised Mary and her daughter Jemsai returned to Stratton House on Christmas Eve. Being a Buddhist household we did not make a big thing about Xmas, but I did go as far as filling some homemade sacks with snackfood, fruit, and some small gifts for the children to find outside their rooms in the morning.
Mary and Jemsai also kindly donated some art materials for the use of all the children.
We also skipped work detail for the day and allowed the children to relax watching some cartoon dvds in the afternoon.
In the evening we all went along to the village Church where May 1 was part of the Xmas show performing some excellent dance routines with her classmates. You can see the videos below. Apologies for the poor quality, must remember to use the camcorder next time.
Mary genorously sponsored a trip out to Huay Tung Tao on Boxing Day and we enjoyed lunch at one of the lakeside restaurants and some of the children even braved the cold season chilly waters.
Jemsai got some very good shots on my camera , which you can see below.
On the way home we called at Kamtieng Garden Market where we purchased some much needed garden tools, seeds and a little more turf, once again thanks to Mary.
The turf was laid as soon as we got home with everyone pitching into help.

Thanks Bpaa Bonnie

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Oct 092010

A big thanks to our friend Heather, (Bpaa Bonnie), for the parcel of clothes that arrived on Thursday.

Heather heads the Faa Gamma fund raising team in Australia and featured on this site when she and her family visited and helped out with prepping the Home here before we opened.

She was recently in Thailand again to collect William, a Thai child that she id now fostering in Australia. Unfortunately , due to time restrictions she was unable to come to visit us here but arranged the posting of her kind donation of clothes. There was also a lovely letter for Jack , who Heather sponsors monthly.

Thanks again Heather, love from all at Stratton House to you and all your family.

Faa Gamma Visit.

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Oct 092009

faagamma First, apologies for a long delay in updating but we are still waiting for onsite internet connection.

This week has seen us busy with our welcome visitors from Australia, Heather, Luca and Chloe from the Faa Gamma Fund raising Team.

heatherpaint Heather arrived last Thursday, along with a couple of bags of clothes collected in Australia, and was very keen to get on with anything to help us progress with prepping the home. Amongst other things she helped with giving the walls a good scrub in the kitchen/eating area.

heathermodel She also got her design head on and went to work producing a model of how our playground may end up. This was very useful and inspirational and we decided to immediately go ahead with the ‘pencil’ fence.

After a ride around looking for appropriate looking fence post material, we settled on bamboo, which, at 20 baht for an approximately 6metre length, seemed the most cost effective.

To be sure, we first purchased just one length, cut into the sizes we wanted and with points chopped for driving into the ground. Back at Stratton House we drove the four lengths in to check that it was what we wanted. Agreeing tha this should work fine we went ahead and ordered 70 lengths, (paid for by Heather)which should be enough to complete the job.

It turns out that the supplier we ordered from is just one old guy on his own most of the time and not only could he not cut that many to size for us but he could only supply us with 40 lengths for now as the rest is still in the forest waiting to be cut. Still, this was more than enough to go on with.

heatherboonlucawork Heathers partner Luca, and his daughter Chloe arrived on Monday, the same day as the Bamboo and we soon had a good bit of team work going.

For the next few days, Heather and co would go off doing ‘holiday stuff’ in the day, when it was too hot to work, and then return to pitch in with Boon and myself, preparing the fence posts.

The first session involved cutting to size, sanding, and chopping the driving points. Boon and Luca took turns with the cutting and chopping whilst the girls sanded like crazy.

fenceposts All these posts then needed priming and then glossing in a variety of colours and everyone pitched in with this.

The visit was over before we knew it and its a shame we hadn’t got as far as putting any of the fence up before Faa and her team left. But it was an extremely useful few days help and encouragement and we hope to be driving the first of the fence posts in tonight when the sun eases off.

Once again we would like to thanks Heather, Luca and Chloe for their help and further donations of clothes, bedsheets and games for the kids.

For all the photos from the visit please visit our photobucket album here.