Help To Provide Lunch For Half Day School Students

The last few months were very difficult for DEPDC's Lunch Program. Due to a lack of funding for the program we had to cut the school lunch to one or two times per week depending on available funds. After the rice harvest last week and the successful start of our mushroom farm two weeks ago, we hope that the program will be able to provide a daily, healthy, vegetarian lunch again soon.

During the last few weeks HDS had to cut back the school's Lunch Program to only one or two meals a week as there is not enough money to pay the food for lunches every day of the working week. In those hard times we had to ask our students to bring their own lunch from home. However, there are two pieces of good news.

The first good news is that the rice DEPDC sowed four months ago was ready for harvest last week and will be sent to the rice mill to be prepared for being used. The harvest is thought to be about 420kg of eatable rice and will support the Lunch Program for some months to come.

The second good news is that the mushroom farm that was started by a monk from Wat Prom Wihan in Mae Sai has begun to provide Naang Fah Kao Mushrooms (a kind of oyster mushroom) that can be sold and used for cooking both of which support HDS's Lunch Program. The mushrooms grow very fast and can only be kept for one day after they’re ready, so sale of the excess mushrooms is a good source of funding to buy additional food needed for the school's lunches.

HDS's students, teachers, and volunteers would like to thank all the past, current, and future donors without whose kind support DEPDC's work would not be possible. Thank you so much!

Links:

• DEPDC's Homepage
• DEPDC's Facebook (English)
• DEPDC's Facebook (Thai)