CPI Raises Substantial Funding in 4th Quarter

Good news in our most recent press release:

During the fourth quarter of 2005, Clear Path International raised more than $275,000 for landmine accident survivors in Southeast Asia through major grants, special events and grassroots contributions, the organization said this week.

In October, Clear Path�s fifth anniversary benefit dinner at the Columbia Tower Club in Seattle, attended by many of its island supporters, raised nearly $30,000. This included a $5,000 underwriting grant from the Seattle-based law firm Marler Clark, LLC.

In December, the humanitarian mine action group received word from the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis of $180,000 in grants for Clear Path�s survivor assistance projects in Vietnam and Cambodia during the next two years.

The largest two-year grant from McKnight, for $105,000, will support a joint project of CPI and Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development in Phnom Penh to build a rice mill in Battambang Province, western Cambodia.

The proposed rice mill and adjoining facility in Battambang will accommodate the training of landmine accident survivors and their families in hands-on agricultural and technical vocational skills.
The total budget for the mill, whose production is expected to make the training program self-sustaining within three years, is $327,000.

The other two-year McKnight grant for $75,000 will support Clear Path International�s survivor assistance program in central Vietnam, where the organization provides medical and socioeconomic assistance to hundreds of families in three districts north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone that once split the country in two.

From the Mark D. Johnson Charitable Trust in California, Clear Path received a $50,000 gift, with $30,000 for survivor assistance in all three program countries �� Vietnam, Cambodia and the Thai-Burma border area �� and $20,000 for a media project to raise awareness of the landmine problem in Southeast Asia.

In addition, Clear Path received a $5,000 grant for its survivor assistance and mine action work from the Olive Higgins Prouty Foundation and $4,000 from John and Hazel Griffith of San Jose. The remainder of the $275,000 came from individual donations.

Since it was founded on Bainbridge Island in 2000, Clear Path has provided assistance to more than 2,300 landmine accident survivors and their families in Southeast Asia, and sent 60 containers with $4 million worth of medical equipment and supplies to dozens of hospitals in 20 countries affected by the presence of landmines.