The Lert Sa Wat Nursery is so popular with local families that in 2018 they had to create an extra class to take another 17 children. Children come five days a week. Some parents perch their child in front of them on their motorbikes, drop off their child at Nursery on the way to work and collect them at the end of the day. Over 20 families prefer to pay Lert Sa Wat 10 Baht (23pence) for the Lert Sa Wat pick-up to drive round the outlying farms to collect their child and take them home at the end of the day
.2018 LSW children getting in pick up
The old pickup, nicknamed Santisuk (peace) has served faithfully for 14 years. Now it is getting old and beginning to cost a lot in repairs. In Thailand, nowhere is more corrupt than the second-hand vehicles market. Vehicles damaged in accidents are sold as perfect, with no comeback when faults appear.
In 2018 we began fundraising for a new pick up for the Lert Sa Wat Nursery, with a Carryboy cover on the back and air conditioning to make the journeys in the heat more bearable. The cost of the new vehicle was likely to be in the region of £20,000.

 

2018 inside pick up

Fundraising for the Pickup

We held a Burns Night Ceilidh at Heaton Baptist Church and Life Centre in January 2018 and raised £763, a great start to our new fundraising project.

Maureen celebrated a significant birthday in March 2018 and organised a charity Zumbathon to mark the occasion. This raised £792.50.

Julie applied to some Christian charitable trusts, and we were awarded grants of £5,000 from both the Souter Trust and the Generation Trust.

Thanks to generous donations, another Burns Night ceilidh and supper, the proceeds from our 2018 Christmas catalogue and the sale of the Lert Sa Wat cookbook, another idea masterminded by Julie, we have reached and passed our £20,000 target! 

After careful research, the staff decided the vehicle best suited to the hilly terrain was a Mitsubishi Pickup.

Bought in January 2019, it was sent to a reputable local garage for the back to be covered in and made suitable for transporting 30 young children.

 

This is what the Pickup looks like now.
Much more comfortable!