By Jason Sweeney
 COURTESY OF SIDNEY RIDGWAY Sidney Ridgway, shown here with residents in the fishing village of Vaithikuppam outside Pondicherry, India, has been helping victims through the organization From Hand to Hand. |
Sidney Ridgway traveled to India to attend a yoga clinic, but the Dec. 26 tsunami altered her plans considerably. Surveying the destruction around her, Ridgway, a Los Altos resident and retired United Airlines purser, decided she needed to do something to help the victims.
Communicating from India by phone and e-mail, Ridgway began getting the word out about the plight of the people in the fishing village of Vaithikuppam outside the city of Pondicherry on India’s eastern coast.
She started a grassroots campaign with Toni Jakovec of Los Altos and Mara Hoffer of San Jose, named From Hand To Hand, which raised $6,000 for victims of the disaster.
The $6,000 was wired to Ridgway March 24, Jakovec said. The money will be used to provide relief directly to people in need in Vaithikuppam through the purchase of relief packages of rice, cooking oil and other necessities.
Jakovec hopes From Hand To Hand can provide relief without being subject to governmental interference or the administrative costs of larger humanitarian organizations.
She was surprised by the response that From Hand To Hand received. A friend Jakovec knew only over the Internet created a Web site with pictures and firsthand accounts from Ridgway, and money from friends and strangers began to pour in.
After learning of Ridgway’s efforts, students at Jordan Middle School in Palo Alto voted to donate $2,000 to From Hand To Hand.
The students at Jordan Middle School had raised $4,500 over two months. Students sold lemonade, wristbands, cards, earrings, pens and pencils, and held a bake sale and an auction of artwork they had made, said Salma Kamdil, a sixth grade math and science teacher at the school.
“One of the parents referred Sidney to us,” Kamdil said. “We took a vote, and the kids voted to give part of the money to Sidney.”
The students donated the remaining portion of the money raised to Mercy Corps and the Give Light Foundation, which is building an orphanage in Aceh, Indonesia.
Monica Sinh, at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, said the Indian government prefers that money for tsunami victims be donated to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund or to NGOs.
It is more difficult for private citizens because money transferred into the country would be subject to taxation, Sinh explained.
Red tape has slowed the disbursement of the money, Jakovec said.
The group plans to spend 100 percent of the $6,000 on direct relief, even if it means spending their own money to cover expenses.
According to the Web site of the Indian Consulate in San Francisco, the confirmed death toll in India from the tsunami is 10,151, with almost 6,000 people reported missing.
The union territory of Pondicherry, where Ridgway was when the tsunami struck, reported a loss of 591 lives.
For more information about From Hand To Hand log on to www.ridersoccer.homestead.com/pondicherry.html. For more information about the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund log on to www.indianembassy.org/Tsunami/PMCont1.htm.
