Gifts
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By RICHARD READ
[Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in The Oregonian]
Hillsboro, Oregon - The tsunami that clobbered South Asia touched Intel's orderly campus Monday as employees presented $126,000 to Mercy Corps workers, who included one volunteer back from Indonesia.
The donation, which includes dollar-for-dollar Intel Foundation matching money, comes on top of in-kind contributions, other matched giving and a $1 million gift from the foundation. The foundation gift is the largest one-time corporate contribution ever received by Mercy Corps, a Portland-based relief-and-development organization.
Two employees donated a week's pay to the tsunami-response initiative, which raised additional money for six other organizations, exceeding Intel's 9/11 contributions. The numbers reflected the sentiments of employees shaken from their high-tech routines.
"Before this event I never thought about charity, I was so engrossed in my work," said Roshan Fernando, an Intel microprocessor-design engineering manager who comes from Sri Lanka. "Now I realize this is about people I left behind. This is my neighbor behind my house who got washed away."
Fernando spoke at a staged event in an antiseptic conference room, but his message -- and those of other Intel workers who helped raise money -- united hemispheres and humanity. Mercy Corps managers said prompt charitable support helped prevent hunger and disease, setting the stage for recovery.
Little more than a month after the Dec. 26 tsunami, Mercy Corps helped open 10 Indonesian schools that had been extensively cleaned and repaired, said Neal Keny-Guyer, the organization's chief executive officer. "It was because of you all," and other early donors, he said.
Keny-Guyer's wife, Alissa, recently returned from two weeks in Aceh, the area of Indonesia most heavily battered by the earthquake-triggered waves. Alissa Keny-Guyer, who speaks Indonesian from two stints there in the 1980s, helped supervise food distribution and gauge long-term needs. The mother of three -- whose father, the late David Guyer, headed Save the Children USA -- described feeling overwhelmed on arrival.
"The first few days I was really in shock, even though I had seen images for two weeks," Keny-Guyer said. "Everywhere I looked, it was just debris."
Many survivors in Banda Aceh appeared listless and unable to cope, she said. Mercy Corps provided temporary jobs for cleanup projects and to make pallets used to haul food and debris. Then the organization helped start businesses, as entrepreneurs made pallets and sold them to a United Nations agency.
Mercy Corps mobilized fishermen to relaunch grounded boats and helped brick makers restart damaged kilns. Development workers plan to supply fishing boat repair kits, extend small business loans and distribute school supplies.
"I left," Alissa Keny-Guyer said, "with this incredible feeling of hope."
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