TBO.com News

Local Couple Plan To Do More To Help Thailand

By MONICA SCANDLEN mscandlen@tampatrib.com

Published: Dec 26, 2005

TAMPA - There are five new houses in Khao Lak, Thailand, and villagers on an island named Koh Mook fish with repaired boats and new nets thanks to donors from Tampa.

Randall Knowles, along with his wife, Tapanee Damrongwatanasuk, and their family business, The Royal Palace Thai Restaurant in south Tampa, raised $50,000 for tsunami relief.

Knowles spent three months in Thailand overseeing the projects and returned to Tampa in May. While abroad, he worked with ThaiTogether, an informal network of organizations and volunteers involved in tsunami recovery. He plans to return in February.

Thailand's tsunami toll was 8,327 dead or missing, most on the sliver of southern Thailand that juts into the Andaman Sea.

Five houses are being built in Khao Lak near Phuket in Phang Na. Knowles hopes to arrange to build three more.

Through ThaiTogether, he learned of some fishing villages on Koh Mook in Trang province, south of Phuket. Boats were destroyed, and the villages lost three water wells.

"They didn't get any relief at all from the government," Knowles said.

He bought drinking water for the villagers from Trang. The bottles were loaded onto boats every couple of days and sent to the island, which is a 45-minute boat ride away.

Knowles also bought some new computers for a school and materials to help villagers make fishing nets and repair their boats.

"Things move very slow," Knowles said. "Not much gets done."

He and his wife might hold another fundraiser at the restaurant before he returns to Thailand.