Day 11 of Spend it Well’s East Timor Relief

Spend it Well East Timor Flood Relief
Day 11
We are closing in on our $20,000 matching donation total – with donations since Tuesday currently at $15,690.  Thanks so much to everyone who has donated.

Yesterday, supplies and food were delivered to 72 families – 347 people in 5 different villages around Dili.  Sabeh headed out to deliver supplies to one of these villages at 7pm last night when they were told that they had nothing.

We’ve been hearing that the districts outside Dili are in desperate need of assistance. So today, we and Sabeh have delivered 3 trucks and 6 utes full of food and supplies for 405 families – 1748 people in 4 villages in the Luco area (part of Manatutu district), 65km east of Dili.  Because of the Covid perimeter we were only allowed to go half-way, where the Laco community moved everything onto their vehicles to take to the village.

The food and supplies for Laco (paid for by Spend it Well donors) cost  A$17,000 which bought:

420 mattresses
420 mosquito nets
420 blankets
270 kg second hand children’s clothes
720 eggs
8,400 kg of rice
420 x 1kg packs of flour
420 x 1kg packs of sugar
192 cans of beef
16,800 packs of noodles
360 packs of sanitary napkins
288 bars of soap
152 packs of coffee
420 x 2 litre bottles of cooking oil
1500 packs washing up detergent

A few donors have asked us how we are doing this monumental job of sourcing. Supplies are still easily available in Dili – this is because so few of the people who lost everything have the money to replace what they have lost. One of our team has been managing all our procurement, negotiating hard for bulk rates from stores in Dili which are being delivered to Sabeh, whose volunteers package them into family packs before we distribute them in the afternoons.  Our Spend it Well team is almost exclusively volunteers – working all day for each of the last 11 days to get help to people.

It’s amazing how much you can get done with a great team of people, an incredible need and people around the world who have generously donated money.  100% of your money has been used to purchase the supplies that have been delivered.  All associated costs such as petrol and truck hire have been separately funded.  No money has been lost to bureaucracy or administration.  Thank you for your help.  It is greatly appreciated.