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Planet 9 helping in Nepal

6K views 23 replies 13 participants last post by  JohnnyQuest 
#1 ·
Recently it came to my attention that one of the developers who assists me with this site was not as reachable as he once was. A couple of projects that we had scheduled to be done on this site had fallen behind schedule. When I was finally able to reach Steven I discovered why. Rather than me tell you about it I thought I would simply share Steven's words with you directly:


Steven said:
I have been traveling in Asia recently.

I've been in Nepal for a little over three months, enjoying this beautiful country's very warm people and rich cultures (plural).
It's a cloudy morning on April 25th in Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu, Nepal. I am in my hotel room, working on my laptop.

I am in the middle of coding something. Suddenly, there is shaking. I pause for a few seconds, confused about what's happening.
The shaking stops. I get out of my chair and look out the window. The shaking resumes. I hear people screaming, see them running.

It dawns on me what's happening. I am experiencing an earthquake. It dawns on me that I am stuck on the 5th floor with no escape.
The shaking doesn't stop this time. I quickly rip the curtains off the window and start tying them into a rope to climb down.

I hear the heavy sound of wood & stone rubbing, coming from outside. The house across crumbles & smashes to the ground.
The shaking stops. I look outside and see danger on the street. It's narrow, maybe 3/4ths the size of a one-way in New York City.

Unlike New York, there are no sidewalks. No curb. Like an alley. There's an alley, and multi story buildings stacked on eachother.
Endless buildings that can, like that old house, collapse and crush everyone in the street. There's no open space within sight.

I have an idea. I run upstairs, to the open restaurant on the roof. It's empty. If this building falls, I'll jump onto the next one.
I strongly feel my chances are better if I jump and fall on top of an adjoining building, than if building(s?) fall on top of me in the street.

The shaking resumes. I position myself to jump, if I feel this building is about to collapse. The shaking stops. The waiter walks in.
He says there's an open space down the street, around the corner. We run down. At the entrance, the hotel owner points to safety.

I dash off in the direction of the open area, cautious of buildings. The shaking resumes while me and others run down the street.
I run as fast as I can, the earthquake weighing down my movements. The shaking stops midway, and I make it there safe.

After a few days, I was able to book a flight for an unexpected departure from Nepal. 3 hours before my flight, I decided to stay.
I decided to stay and do everything in my power to help the devastated people here, those who can't simply walk away from this.
Steven has since embarked on an initiative to help Nepalis in need by helping to provide them shelter. I've decided to help my developer by sharing his story with our members here on Planet-9.com and asking that any of you so inclined to do so please consider contributing to shelter a Nepali family. To find out more about his relief efforts and contribute, click here:

 
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#6 ·
There are also alternate means for those wanting to help, Unicef and several other aid organisations are also still working tirelessly to help.
so whichever means you choose to help, you'd be helping the less fortunate.

busy year for the tectonic plates.... we just experienced a quake here too near our tallest peak.
 
#7 ·
What Steven did is truly selfless, every opportunity to leave and, then, 3 hours before his flight decides to stay and help. What he's currently doing is truly encouraging, making a difference. Wow! Just awesome!
 
#8 ·
What I think most people don't understand is that the govt in Nepal is taking most all the $$$ for relief efforts and they aren't getting to the people who need the help. Same goes for relief items. Steven's first shipment of tents was grabbed by unscrupulous govt thugs.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Ken, I believe the whole world has children in miserable conditions. I believe P9 community could help.

I propose the following:
1) a dedicated forum for charity where members can promote good causes they participate in or aware of.
2) a fixed percentage of the Insider returns goes to charity. This may even encourage more members to become paying members.
3) an icon next to the avatar of contributing members to promote that we are not only car fanatics but good humans too.

I'm sure many of us contribute privately in their own communities, but even bringing up global awareness is still a good thing.

Thank you.
 
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#18 ·
You know you want me to create a new forum for everything right? :) Each new forum created places additional load on all systems, thus I'm a bit hesitant to do it when we could handle this in the Off-Topic forum currently since it doesn't technically pertain to Porsches. If you recall I created that professional networking forum awhile back and no one seems to use it.

I like the idea of a % of Insider returns going to charity and once we get our site enhancements done (which are chewing up 100% of insider funds PLUS additional funds) then I can certainly come back and work something out for that.

I'll see if Steve can whip up a special item for our profiles like the donor or Insider graphics that people get next to their names. It is simply a technical issue of how to apply donations through a 3rd party system back to members of this site, but Steve is a sharp guy and I'm sure can figure that one out.

Thanks for the suggestions!
 
#19 · (Edited)
Thank you, Steven, for organizing this, and thank you, Ken, for bringing it to our attention.

I would suggest moving this thread to the Off-Topic forum now, as I think that gets more traffic than News.
 
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#20 ·
KCZ if it was you that sent 3 complete tents, thank you for your abundantly generous contribution! :) I'll be back with pictures from the families that receive these on Saturday afternoon NST, when these tents are delivered to the Bidur and I've looped back to Kathmandu.

Thanks to P9 and SSC, we have +5 tents to go out to families on Saturday so far; thank you for your continuing support! After the 1st tent, the goal was set to 10 tents per week, so we're halfway there and hopefully we'll hit the target by the end of the week
:)
 
#22 ·
* Tents delivered to 6 families :) thank you everyone! see photos below
* To see which tent came from who, click on the Deliveries button
* Added a the img-grid tag to scale photos here down to post box size
* 1 of the 7 tents was defective, being replaced when I return to the factory
* The quality of the photos and print was unusually bad, fixing both next run

[img-grid]https://www.nepalisneedyou.com/cache/photos/24.jpg[/img-grid]
[img-grid]https://www.nepalisneedyou.com/cache/photos/25.jpg[/img-grid]
[img-grid]https://www.nepalisneedyou.com/cache/photos/26.jpg[/img-grid]
[img-grid]https://www.nepalisneedyou.com/cache/photos/27.jpg[/img-grid]
[img-grid]https://www.nepalisneedyou.com/cache/photos/28.jpg[/img-grid]
[img-grid]https://www.nepalisneedyou.com/cache/photos/29.jpg[/img-grid]
[img-grid]https://www.nepalisneedyou.com/cache/photos/30.jpg[/img-grid]
 
#24 ·
I just returned from 2 weeks of trekking through Nepal. Everything I read said, "The best thing you can do to help Nepal recover is to not cancel your plans to visit!" That's exactly what we did. We had a great time with wonderful people who genuinely appreciated us being there. Tourism is still way down from the pre-quake levels, thus a lot of people are out of work.
 
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