|
WEST GOULDSBORO
— A local effort to help fishermen in Thailand
recover from the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami has
put more than $14,000 into the hands of those
who needed it most.
Carl Johnson of
West Gouldsboro and his youngest son, Matthew,
spent nearly a month searching Koh
Lanta Island and working with
“Sea Gypsy” tribal leaders to identify longboat
fisherman whose livelihoods had been destroyed
by tsunami waves.
The Johnson
family had been regular visitors to Thailand and
Koh Lanta
Island long before the Dec. 26, 2004,
tsunami. It was a disaster that killed nearly
300,000 people in 11 South Asian countries —
more than 5,000 in Thailand—and it touched the
lives of Thai friends the Johnsons had made
during previous trips to Koh Lanta.
Rather than make
donations to an international relief
organization, Johnson, 58, wanted to place 100
percent of what financial help he could provide
directly into the hands of those who needed it
most: local Thai fishermen.
After a story on
Johnson’s “Thai Relief Fund” appeared in The
American, donations started trickling into the
Bar Harbor Bank and Trust account established to
collect donations.
When the two men
left for Thailand on Jan. 11, the fund balance
was nearing $5,000. By the time they distributed
the funds three weeks later, it had grown to
more than $14,000.
The largest
donation came from the eighth-grade class of
Mountain View
School in Sullivan, which voted unanimously to allocate $5,000 it had collected
for a class trip to
Boston to
Johnson’s relief effort, instead.
Jet-lagged and
back in his West Gouldsboro home after a 40-hour
trip from Bangkok, Carl Johnson said Thursday
his month-long tsunami relief mission to
Thailand was “a moving experience.”
“I hope everyone
who has helped with this project can feel even 1
percent of what Matt and I felt when we saw the
look of amazement on those fishermen’s faces,”
Johnson said.
“What we gave
them was a new lease on life. I wish I were a
rich man, because then I could do this every
day. It felt so good.”
The Johnsons own
two Winter
Harbor businesses: The Fisherman’s Inn Restaurant and Grindstone Neck of Maine,
which manufactures gourmet seafood products. The
couple also owns the Sunset House Bed &
Breakfast in
West Gouldsboro.
|
