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JMA students chip in big for Sri Lankan tsunami relief efforts

Members of John MIlledge Academy’s Anchor Club gather around Murali Thirumal during a gathering at the school last week. Thirumal is a Sri Lankan native currently raising money for relief efforts.

By Pam Beer

John Milledge Academy continued its tradition of helping those in need by raising money for the victims of the tsunami disasters.

Last week the Anchor Club of JMA invited Murali Thirumal, a Sri Lankan native who serves as the director of Lockerly Arboretum, to the school to receive contributions they’d collected for the relief effort in Sri Lanka. In all, the club raised $2,000 – about half from their treasury and half collected from the other JMA students, faculty and parents. Thirumal created a relief fund for those in the central Georgia area who wanted to donate to the relief effort.

As he addressed the 7th-12th graders, Thirumal thanked them for their donations, and tried to give the students a no-nonsense glimpse at the disaster from someone familiar with the region.

“I went to bed the Christmas night knowing there had been an earthquake,” he said. “I woke up on the morning of the 26th to a phone call from my sister. She said Sri Lanka had been hit by a tsunami.” In the ensuing days people who know Thirumal called him to ask what he was doing about the disaster.

“I wasn’t doing anything, and I felt rather embarrassed,” he said. “That’s what started it.”

The $2,000 will go into a Sri Lanka relief fund Thirumal established. He has friends in Sri Lanka who already have a relief infrastructure set up in that country that is embroiled in a civil war. The money in Thirumal’s fund will go to help “the poorest of the poor,” the orphans of Sri Lanka, and those who have fallen through the cracks and haven’t received aid from the other relief organizations.

“It’s wonderful for me to collect money hereÖbut the greater responsibility I have as an individual is to make sure that the money goes to the right places,” he said. “We are trying very hard to make sure the money goes to the people who need it the most.”

Last Thursday he wired $5,560 from the relief fund to the ground crew.

“It’s going to help build 10 houses at $3,370 each, and the rest of the money is going to furnish cooking utensils for 100 other households,” Thirumal told the students, adding that the average monthly income in Sri Lanka is just $37.

Linda Scogin, co-sponsor of the Anchor Club, said she wasn’t really surprised that the students had jumped at the chance to help in the relief effort.

“We’re a service club affiliated with the Pilot Club of Milledgeville, and we want to help people,” Scogin said. “We started talking about how we should start raising money for the relief effort, then we saw in the paper that (Thirumal’s) fund was available. I already had met Murali so I knew this would be legitimate.”

Beth Blizzard, Anchor Club president, said that the club had been waiting all year to decide what to do with funds that had accumulated in the club’s treasury. After deciding on the Sri Lankan relief project, the club sought to get the whole school involved, sending letters home with the elementary school students, and hanging posters all over the school.

“We even asked people to put the change from their lunch money in a jar in the lunch room,” she said.

Meeting Thirumal helped to put a local face on the disaster half a world away.

“It’s so good to meet someone who’s actually from there and hear him talk about the people he knows from there,” Blizzard said. “It makes it real, and it helps to have someone here in Milledgeville who can be our direct connection to Sri Lanka. To hear him talk about it makes it very real, and makes me even more glad that we can help.”

To contribute to the Sri Lanka relief fund, visit www. relieflanka.org