Chandara Student's Home are spreading the love

Earlier this February, our students have come up with the idea of fundraising to help the Restaurant of the Children (Le Restaurant des Enfant - ផ្ទះបាយកុមារ) by creating an event called “Valentine’s Food”. The idea is to buy and serve a meal for up to 200 children in order to spread the love on Valentine’s day.  

Les Restaurants des Enfants (LRDE) located in sangkat Boeung Keng Kang III, not far from Toul Sleng Museum, was founded by Mr. NGOV Chiv in 1990. Their mission is to providing three meals to children coming from needed family.

The idea behind their mission is to feed the children first before helping them helping themselves and shaping them into a good example for the next generation. “They are like tree, when we don’t provide them water and fertilizer, they can only grow up but there will be no flowers or fruits. So when the children are starving or not healthy we cannot expect a good outcome from them”, Mr. NGOV Chiv explained. The goal of their organization is not to only feed them but to also give them access to profesional opportunities and a better quality of life, he continued, “In order to help those children walking away from the poverty and drugs, make them learn to read and write, and make them want to have a brighter future, we need to feed them first. We can do anything when we are full.”

When we arrived at the location, all the children of all age were waiting for us, some of them even arrived hours beforehand as they’ve heard that we will be serving them pizzas, all children favorite food, "We have inform them that today's event will only start from 10:30am, however they are so excited knowing that they will be having pizzas for lunch today, that many of them arrived since 6am. In here we mostly serve cambodian's food, so having pizza for them is very special", said to me Ms. MEAK Pich Chenda, LRDE's Accoutant.

Upon their departure from the center back home, I have noticed that some children have not touch their pizza at all, so when I shared my concerned with her, Ms. Pich Chenda explained: "It's not they don't like it but they are bringing it back home to share with their parents. They are very generous!  The other day we were serving a dish with shrimp, they didn't eat the shrimp here they just ask pack it, so they could share it with their family" . By hearing that, my heart fluttered, because even if they don't have much they can still share a little of joy to others.

For this occasion, Papa John’s Pizza give us a special offer, buy one pizza get one free.

At first our target was to serve food up to 200 children but because of all the donations we could gather, we were able to feed up to 300 children!

Great work girls!