Chum reap suor (formal Khmer greeting) folks,

Now that the end of the financial year has come and gone, I can share with you some encouraging news about the amazing response we received to the matching funding campaign we conducted for our Cambodia projects over the past six weeks.

As you may recall, we had one of our long term supporters step up to the plate and offer to double any donations made during the campaign up to a maximum of $40,000 a potential financial injection of $80,000 into our projects!

Well, the tally room has been busy crunching the numbers over the past couple of days and it now gives me great pleasure to announce that we received an unbelievable $34,660 in donations to the end of June, so that will top up our project working account to the tune of over $69,000. In the current economic climate, this is an incredible result, so on behalf of the nearly 1200 impoverished youngsters who attend our two schools, and their families, I would like to offer my heartfelt gratitude to everyone who donated.

Your generosity will underpin our broad list of project activities, from providing a first class and free education to our students, to running a vitally important high school boarding house, mentoring and accommodating countless university students, providing transportation services, clean water initiatives, running our farm and delivering emergency food aid, among an array of other on-ground activities.

I'm so proud of the efforts of our dedicated team in Cambodia who are exacting real change in the lives of our students and their families and this matching funding result will be a great encouragement to them all. We are witnessing an incredible transformation in the two provinces we support, testament to the power and hope a quality education brings.

Update a 3 hours after initial post:

STOP PRESS, hold the phones ..... some late breaking news about our Cambodia projects' matching funding campaign. As you will have read, we had a terrific response from donors (regular, infrequent and first-timers) in attempting to reach our target of $40,000 contributed (to be matched dollar for dollar by our long term supporter for a grand total of $80,000) and only fell short by $5,340.

Well guess what just turned up in our Cambodia projects working account in the last ten minutes ... that's right $5,340 and although it was after the 30 June deadline, our matching donor has very graciously agreed to double it, so we have reached our AU$80,000 target.

What an amazing privilege it is to be involved in every facet of this awesome humanitarian project. It really does reinforce the power we all have to positively impact the world we live in. Many akuns (thanks) once again.

We would love for you to consider partnering with us in an array of great projects across two of Cambodia's poorest provinces by making a tax deductible donation today (or any day). You can contribute directly into our Australian working account 'Supporting Cambodia' BSB 015 600, A/C 196 791 878 (please include your name & email address in the transaction).