Truckee HELP

Dear Prospective Donor,
The Truckee Himalayan Exchange Literacy Program (Truckee HELP) is a small community program started by a group of Truckee High School students. In the fall of eighth grade, we traveled to Nepal to go trekking in the Everest region. We immediately fell in love with the incredibly friendly community that reminded us of our own mountain town. Upon returning back to the United States, we kept a correspondence going with our new Sherpa friends while beginning to think of ways the people of Nepal and Truckee could learn and gain from each other. After a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated much of the country we knew we had to do something. We raised over $6000 to help our Sherpa guide rebuild his home in Pangboche Village. The Truckee HELP team is now trying to raise $5,000 to establish an ongoing program between Truckee High School and the Khumjung School of Nepal. 

Our plans with the money are two fold. First, we want to bring tablet computers to the Khumjung students so that we can establish communication channels between our two schools.  Second, we want to work with Truckee High School students to do an annual community service project in Nepal, beginning this year with a cultural exchange. We want to establish an aid fund that can help to send our students to Nepal and also to hopefully bring some of their students here one day. Continual communication, mountain to mountain, will help the Nepalese students learn English, a crucial element in maintaining the Himalayan tourism economy. Meanwhile, Truckee students will gain irreplaceable world perspective. This exchange is possible through the Amazon Fire HD 7 tablets that your generous donations will fund!

Thanks for your time and help,
Calin Laine, Zach Larson, and Patrick Sullivan
Truckee HELP

Our guide, Dasonam Sherpa, pictured here with his wife, granddaughter, mother, and son.

Zach Larson, Calin Laine, and Dasonam's son Nyima at Dingboche Village.

Jonathan Laine and his son Sawyer on a rest stop on the trail.

The school in Pangboche Village.  We later raised money to help repair earthquake damage here.

Dasonam's home was severely damaged in the earthquake. We raised over $5000 to help him rebuild it. Now, we want to broaden our connection to the area by establishing a school exchange program between our mountain communities. Thank you for considering a donation to this project!