C.O.L.O.R. was sparked by the 2004 tsunami in S. Asia when we, Scott and Jennifer, decided to go and help with the clean up and repairs. Five weeks following the tsunami we found ourselves in Sri Lanka delivering hundreds of thoughtfully packed lunch boxes full of essential and morale building items from children in the NW destin for children thousands of miles away in refugee camps. From there the projects and amazing people have just kept coming.

Since that first trip we have built a community center, a library, several computer labs, transformed a beach, given out countless scholarships, and also delivered medication, supplies, and staff training for “untouchables” in Sri Lanka.  C.O.L.O.R. has also expanded into other parts of Asia including: Thailand, Cambodia, China, and Indonesia.   We have built an orphanage for Karen children fleeing Myanmar, provided scholarships to hill tribe girls in poor farming communities, made crucial upgrades to a home for handicap children, provided monthly food supplies to several newly formed orphanages, we made a program to feed poor children within the schools as a motivate to go to school (it worked!), we also helped fund housing construction, household supplies, and educational supplies for children, after a hurricane had devastated the community and we also do “santa drops” of backpacks, school supplies, books, clothing, shoes, socks, and athletic equipment into poor communities. In the  U.S., we host an annual picnic for Seattle area children in foster care and we have an annual college scholarship fund for the Arts.

We are a very small organization that is run by friends and funded by friends. We strive to keep our projects small and person to person.  Our intention with some projects is to start useful, and well organized “seed projects” that appeal not only to the communities needs, but also appeals to larger NGO’s that then take over and grow our seed project.  Projects like, The Egg A Day Project in Cambodia, the Girls Home in Sri Lanka, and the community center have grown and continued successfully under other NGO’s.  Sometimes its a matter of changing community thinking over the long term like with the Beach Clean Up; where a beach once used as a garbage dump has been transformed into an attraction, now cleaned and cared for by locals after 10 years of C.O.L.O.R. doing the work and setting a standard. Other times it’s a matter of building something so awesome it’s worthy of modern infrastructure; we have had another NGO fund 30 miles of water main to a community center at an absorbent cost to them and C.O.L.O.R. has run power over a thirteen miles to a donated property.  The side effect is clean water and power to places that had none prior, both at the end of the line and all along the way!  We really do select projects with positive intentions and impact. More often then not however it is the personal impacts on individuals that stand out and C.O.L.O.R. aims to follow through and repeat these successful personal projects.

C.O.L.O.R. has a proven track record for creating positive impact and opportunities for youth and children and we hope to continue this path for years to come.

We have a lot of fun and truly enjoy the work we do!