We will have a total of 9 new wells in December

Lauri, Jeannine, Tin, Nancy and myself from our last trip, February 2008

I sent Tin $2250 on Nov.26th. He hopes to have all the wells in by the end of December. After I paid the fees on my end, he had to pay $15 to get the money and the banks along the way took another $35. So he received a total of $2200.00. Earlier a couple of British tourist gave Tin $150 so I added the remaining $100 plus I donated a little extra to get the total to nine wells from the six I thought we could do before. This includes money that a past acquaintance of my daughter that lives in the Boston area also donated. She and her sisters sent me $250 for a well that they donated in their parents name for Christmas. This is a great gift that will last and last. Tin is having a little trouble getting tourist groups in because of the unrest in Thailand since demonstrators have blocked both main airports in Bangkok. He had three groups cancel in November. I think the airports are opening this weekend so I hope other groups have not cancelled as well. Tourism is a major source of income for not only Tin, but the rest of Siem Reap. I had told Tin that since he had lost so many clients that he could use the extra $100 I sent for expenses and wait until some other tourist donated money to go along with the British donation. This is his answer to me.

Thank so much for your kindness. I will not use this money for myself because I have contracted with local well company last few days that I would supply 9wells to 9 families which were already selected. I have to use this money for those 9 families which I have promised with them last few ago. I can't break my promises. Once those families are very poor.Now is winter.At night time is 14degree C and in the day is 25degree C. These people do not have properly clothes and blanket. you know when the temperature varies from 14 to 25degree C means it is chilly here. I am wearing thick cloth every day especially at night time. We donot know how long winter is going to last.Tourism is getting very slow. However thai airport is being ready to open again tourists are still afraid of coming via thailand. We'll see what is going to happen next.

I hope to have plenty of pictures to share after the New Years. It always makes me very happy to see the families and children in the photos and to know that we have made such a big difference in people’s lives.

Updated info

I was reminded that I have not posted my address in quite a while. I’m hope there are tons of people out there wanting to donate and don’t know where to send the money. Please make the check to me and send it to:

Conrad Knab
2525 Main St. #410
Kansas City, MO. 64108

I will make sure Tin gets the money and keep track of when and where your well is built. If you would like to send a smaller donation that’s great or if you can get a group of people to donate a total of $250, we can place the name of a town or group of people on the sign. This would really be a great gift to the people of Cambodia. Wouldn’t you like a picture of a family that you have provided clean water for and a sign showing “Merry Christmas from the Wilson Family”? Or anything other caption you would like posted. This is such a positive thing that we can do for a small amount in the big scheme of things.

As always, if you want to be removed from my email list, just let me know.

Thanks for all your help.

Fundraiser results

Our fundraiser was a success. We were able to rise a little over $1500 from both outright donations and through the auction. My daughter made some coasters and a large trivet that were sold and really helped the cause. And I was able to auction off a few of my photographs. People were really generous, and some of these are the same people that I hit up last year and they are still willing to give both their money and time. It is truly amazing. I want to give an extra thank you to Rhonda for making it all possible. It was only through her hard work and the willingness of the staff at Milano to let us use the space that made it a reality. I’m not sure where we could have had the success we did if not for their efforts.


Since the event, I have been in touch with Tin and he has picked out where the new wells will go. It is in the Kulen mountain area, about 50 kilometers northeast of Siem Reap.

The mountains are behind us in this photo when we went last February to the Kulen area and saw the Reclining Buddha that was built at the top of one of the mountains.

We will be able to add six wells and the signs will read "From your friends in Kansas City". Tin should be able to install all the wells in December. I can’t wait to get the pictures and see the families and children we have helped.

This is a picture of the first well that Nancy and I were able to provide for a family in Cambodia. Since then with the help of our friends we have been able to provide 7 more family wells and one large village well. These wells provide fresh water for over 35 families. We invite you to help us in this endeavor.

Clean water for Cambodia.
Where : Milano
When: Wednesday Oct. 29th 5:00 till 6:00
Light appetizers provided
Silent auction of a collection of pictures

I’m collecting money for the people of Cambodia to have fresh water. My friend Theap Bunthin in Cambodia was our tour guide in Jan. 2007 when we first meet him. We were able to see his program while touring the magnificent temples from the 10th century. He showed us the wells already built by tourist that had visited in the past few years. Cambodia has only been open to tourism since 1999. The civil wars before that stretching from the Pol Pot regime that started in 1975; thru the Vietnamese invasion of 1980 and up until the last cease-fire was signed. The government now is a puppet government that the Vietnamese support. The leader is Hun Sen, a former Pol Pot official that left Cambodia in the late 70’s and helped Vietnam in its invasion. For a reward he has been re-elected each time and funnels what little money the Cambodians can make back to Vietnam. One thing I feel we can do is provide clean drinking water for the families and children there. The wells are about 180 feet deep and the table water is clean since there is no industry there to pollute it. A local company drills the wells for $250. Tin keeps nothing for himself. This is his way of helping his country. I’ll have his profile here for you to see. His story is very interesting and moving. As it is families have to walk up to 2 miles each way to get dirty water from the river. They let it sit in large earthen jars for the sediment to settle, but there is still bacteria left. Almost all of the children in the countryside have intestinal disease of some kind. For $250 a family can have clean water virtually forever. Most gifts I have brought lately don’t last very long. As you can see in the photo if you sponsor a well your family name or whatever you like will be added to the sign. These signs last a year or more and can encourage others to give. But remember the money can be in any amount. Every time I reach the $250 mark, another family gets a well. For a combined donation I’ll add a sign reflective of Kansas City or the Midwest. All the money tonight from the donations and silent auction items will be used to provide as much clean water as possible.

July 2008 wells

August 28th 2008
I was able to have two wells built in July. I hadn’t collected any money lately so I just sent Tin the money for two wells. They were for two families that we had met there on our last trip and you could really see the need from the two mothers as they almost begged for their family to be next. My wife Nancy wrote about these families in her blog. Here is the link to her story Touring Cambodia. http://crowncenter.blogspot.com/2008/03/touring-cambodia.html
Tin sent these pictures along with one that another past tourist paid for. Once again it cost $46 dollars to send the $600.00. It was $20 on my end from Commerce bank to send it and $26 for him to pick it up. I looked into PayPal to see if I could send money less expensive, but it seems they do not operate in Cambodia. I did send a little extra money for these families to help them out with food since rice has almost doubled per kilo. It is just so hard for the people over there. I’m going to try and have enough money by the end of September for 4 more families. I’ve been out of town on a couple of small trips lately and lost focus on raising more money. And before that I was thinking about how to raise large sums of funds and getting a tax free or NGO status. That kind of got me in a funk since I was not getting anywhere with it. So, in September I’m going to try and get enough funds for as many families as possible, after that I’ll look into fundraisers, etc. Maybe I can get so kind of Christmas tie-in going. People can get each other a well for a needy family instead of giving things that sometimes neither one of them really needs or wants. That would make gift giving simple.

This well is being used by two families which live in Kravan village. This is the Khe Nounn family. There are 8 children in this family.

This is the Pech Say Family. They have 6 children

Here is the picture of a well that a past visitor from 2007 sent. She has also been very active in supporting Tin.

I'll keep in touch and if anyone wants to contact me, my email address is cknab1@yahoo.com

Village well completed

I’m very happy to report that the Village well has been completed and is serving 23 families. The well is being used by Phum O' village community which is located about 45km east of Siemreap. Bunthin has told me that this poor community was facing very bad sanitation for very long time. There are many children getting sick and most of them have gotten dengue fever and dysentery. This well will go a long ways toward improving their everyday health. Bunthin is in the back row with his ever present ball cap. You should be able to click on the picture for a better look.

The next village we would like to target is Kampong Thom province, Krayear village, east of Siemreap about 200km away, Bunthin said that no tourists go there at all so they don’t even get the opportunity for the small family wells. They also are facing very bad sanitation and sickness with the children of the village.

In the next couple of weeks I’m going to develop a plan for raising money for the next well. Bunthin having his bank account has helped a lot. The cost of transferring the money was $20 here and his bank charged $26. I hate to lose that much money but it is much better then Western Union which was charging me $17 every $200 I sent over.

I have contacted 3 different organizations that do wells in other countries to see if they would add Cambodia to their list of countries they help but I have not been getting any responses yet. I’ll keep trying but my hopes are not very high right now. I think I will develop a list of companies that I may be able to interest in helping. Any large company that has a foundation that helps worthy causes. If anyone can think of a company to add to my list that would be a great help.

If anyone on my distribution list would rather not receive these emails please let me know and I will remove your name. Otherwise I hope that with your help we can continue to provide fresh water to more and more families that are in such great need. Your generosity has already given many families a gift that benefits them each and everyday.

April report

Well, it is now April and we have been back for over 6 weeks now. Just re adjusting and getting caught up on everything takes a lot of time. We did visit many of the families with the new wells and I was able to take pictures and send them to the donors. If I have missed anyone please email me at cknab1@yahoo.com. Tin has opened a banking account so now I will not have to pay the large charges that Western Union adds. It is $17.00 per hundred, that adds up quick. My wife Nancy wrote a story of our trip and if you like you can read it at her blog. http://www.crowncenter.blogspot.com/ Just go to the right side, click on March, then click on the link Cambodia. She did a great job and I hope you will find it interesting. The inflation rate in Cambodia is now approaching 60%. I really feel for the people as it was hard enough for them to survive before prices started to rise. Rice was .50 /Kilo and is now 1.25 /Kilo. I hope the government there will try and help but we all know that will not happen. Tin was hopping to build the village well in his hometown, but with the price increase it would be over $1800.00 So we have decided to add the village well in a town about 45 Kilometers east of Siem Reap. There are over 20 families that will benefit from this well. He is going to get started after they celebrate the Cambodian New Year which you can read more about here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_New_Year
Also the single family wells have gone from $200 to $250. Once we get the village well built, I am going to have some other fundraisers to help more families. I will probably look into starting an NGO (non-governmental Organization) so that people can get a tax deduction when they contribute. I’m not sure what that will involve but if I want to continue this endeavor, that would be the way to go. Tin had wanted to start one there but the cost was over $3500.00. He said he could use an international NGO if I got one started. For him, it is more for his personal safety then anything else. He does have to try and keep a low profile and not be noticed. I will post pictures of the village well as soon as I can.