Press Release
CityNews – Warm Heart Foundation (CM273) challenges citizens to donate 1,000,000 baht to remove 9,640 kg (21,208 lbs.) of smoke from the air over Chiang Mai this Burning Season. Stop the Smoke! is the first step in Warm Heart Foundation’s five-year plan to eliminate 50% of the smoke. It also a challenges the Chiang Mai Community to step up to eliminate the remaining 50%.
1,000,000 baht will spare Chiang Mai the equivalent of the smoke from 688,575,560 cigarettes. Warm Heart Director, Dr. Michael Shafer, admits that Stop the Smoke! will remove “just a puff of smoke from our air. But it is a first, concrete step in the right direction. Wait until next year!”
The 1,000,000 baht Stop the Smoke! Challenge will run at https://www.crowdrise.com/stop-the-smoke/fundraiser/warmheartworldwidein beginning JANUARY 22, 2017.
All donations should be made via the website to ensure transparency and accountability.
100% of the funds raised by Stop the Smoke! will purchase biochar made by poor farmers in A.Mae Chaem. These farmers normally burn 95,000 tons of corn crop waste generating 594,700 kg (1,308,304 lbs.) of smoke. To produce one ton of biochar requires five tons of corn waste and prevents 31.3 kg (68.9 lbs.) of smoke. Biochar purchased with donations will be used as fertilizer, sequestering tons of CO2 permanently in the earth.
The annual Burning Season is a public health and financial disaster for North Thailand. Every year 3,500 people die from smoke related causes and 18,000 must be hospitalized. Annual healthcare costs to taxpayers exceed 245,000,000,000 baht (US$7 billion). The tourism industry loses 5,000,000,000 baht annually and 10s of thousands lose their jobs. Even total mobilization of the army, police and public administration has failed to reduce the smoke.
Warm Heart Foundation is a grassroots community development organization serving A.Phrao and designing programs to benefit all of the residents of rural Thailand. Warm Heart provides a Children’s Home with remedial education programs, a jobs creating microenterprise program for poor women, sustainable agriculture training for small farmers, and a wellness program for the isolated disabled and elderly. Warm Heart is an American, tax exempt 501.c.3 nonprofit (Warm Heart Worldwide, Inc.) and a registered Thai foundation (CM273). In Thailand, Warm Heart operates solely under the auspices of its Thai Board chaired by Mr. Prakong.
CONTACT English: Dr. Michael Shafer, Director, [email protected] 085-199-2958
Thai/English: Prachan Jakeo, Chief of Staff, [email protected], 084-578-4697
Thai/English: Kwanpirom Soksri, Manager of Environmental Programs, [email protected], 085-716-5117
WEBSITE: www.warmheartworldwide.org