100 Friends, Thousands of Lives Touched
Posted on Oct 28, 2007 under Visionary People |Marc Gold started the 100 Friends project in 1989 as a yearly volunteer travel adventure and it grew into his life’s passion. The name came from the idea that Marc would ask 100 friends to make a donation and then he would distribute the money to the poorest and most unserved people in the third world nations where he traveled. I first talked to Marc a couple of years ago and it has been amazing to see the growth of the project.
Now Marc does this full time and has quite a few people on board as volunteers. This year he’s spent a lot of time in Indonesia. Here’s a bit from a recent report that Marc sent to his newsletter list:
I went back Bandeh Aceh for a week to help tsunami survivors and the other I donated $2,000 for earthquake victims to get back to work with micro-loans. This will result in dozens of people gaining employment. Also set up an emergency fund for the village and support for numerous of the most needy families.
Plans for the rest of this year and beyond include:
- Raising $20,000 to build an 8 room school house for 1000 children in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan; currently the children go to school in tents; the village will provide the land and the labor needed to build the school
- $3,000 to improve a school in Cambodia in the village of Ta Tork 18 km. from Siam Reap
- raising funds to help orphans in Ulan Bator, Mongolia
- scholarships for village children in Borneo, Malaysia
- continuing support of many children rescued from life in the garbage dump in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to live at the Centre for Children’s Happiness
- working through War Child to help Iraqi children suffering from the effects of war in Baghdad and Karbala
- raising funds for children with cancer and AIDS in Thailand
- raising funds for operations and scholarships for children in Viet Nam
- plans starting for a mission in 2008 to Niger and Malawi in Africa, two of the poorest countries in the world
100 Friends has been featured in several national media reports this year. Here are two of them:
Voice of America (article & audio), April 2007
San Francisco Cronicle, November 2006
