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Community Corner

Runners to Support Nepal at Saturday's Driftwood Dash

Laura Handy-Nimick stages a second annual fun run at Lake Tapps to help support orphans halfway around the world.

As spring is getting under way, so is the season for outdoor athletics and fun runs. The 2nd Annual Driftwood Dash, organized by Life’s Handy Work, is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday, April 9, starting at Lake Tapps’ Driftwood Point Park. There is also a Kid’s Mini Dash at 9:15 a.m.

The 5K Fun Run & Walk event is the brainchild of Laura Handy-Nimick, who spent time living in Nepal and volunteering at Nepal Orphan Home (NOH). While there, she saw the need to support young children, especially young girls rescued from the slave trade in Nepal, and help them to realize their dreams for their futures. She has since dedicated herself to changing the lives of less fortunate and impoverished children by raising money to help, and has found the fun run a positive way to spread awareness for Nepal’s orphan children.

In the organization's first fun run in 2010, the community raised more than $1,800 for NOH and Handy-Nimick hopes to double those efforts this year. “We have a ton of new people,” she said, regarding the pre-registered entrants.

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Participants can continue to register now, or on the morning of the run. Many big-name sponsors have stepped up to support Life’s Handy Work’s Driftwood Dash, including Jamba Juice, Top Foods, Al Lago and Pop Chips, among many others. The event will conclude with a gift card drawing. The registration fee for this event is $25, with all proceeds supporting Life’s Handy Work. Kids are free.

Starting Life’s Handy Work with her husband, Justin, Handy-Nimick is helping to provide ongoing support and financial resources by providing small business, education and living grants to assist in empowering the young adults to be productive members of their community.

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As a seventh grade language arts and social studies teacher, Handy-Nimick knew she wanted to teach abroad and found placement through NOH at one of the four girls' homes in Nepal during the summer of 2009. There she learned the girls were often victim to slave labor and boys were forced into becoming soldiers.

“These kids have very little opportunity,” she says with regard to the deteriorating living conditions and the social discrimination that is put on these children as a result of their social caste.

Handy-Nimick said she discovered Nepal “completely by accident. I had never travelled outside of the United States. I wanted to live somewhere and experience the culture. A friend somehow found the Nepal Orphan Home and suggested I check it out. What sold me was the founder of NOH, Michael Hess, who personally responded to me and answered my questions thoroughly.”

“Bored with life,” Handy-Nimick explains on her blog, she packed up her bags and flew 22 hours to Nepal on the wings of a greater calling, after finding www.VolunteerNepal.com, an organization that allows volunteers to be submersed in Nepalese culture by living and working alongside the people and families of Nepal. Volunteers find many opportunities waiting, including teaching, assisting at orphanages or helping villages to plant and harvest crops.

Though admittedly afraid of flying, Handy-Nimick quickly got over her fears and will return to Nepal in July.

In addition to the money raised from the fun run, she is hoping to also collect donations of modern luxuries such as earrings, knitting supplies, batteries and running shoes in addition to used laptops and digital cameras in good working order for her planned return and will have a drop box at the Dash. Life’s Handy Work will also be accepting cash donations at the registration table.

“We’re working on dollars and change,” shares Handy-Nimick. “Every penny goes a long, long way.”

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