CFB - Consular Club of Ho Chi Minh City Meets

[Admin]

The Consular Club of Hồ Chí Minh City will have their regular December meeting. The Convoy For Babies (CFB) HCMC -->Dong Nai orphanage group had submitted a micro-grant application to the CC to fund 10 large cans (900g) of baby formula. The advocate and presenter of this micro-grant application is Piers Smith, the Treasurer.

From the email I received, it looks very likely that CFB will get all 20 cans for it's next convoy run....which I'm thinking will be....oh I love polls!!!

Do you think the next Convoy For Babies (CFB) HCMC --> Dong Nai should be on December 23....wait a second..I already wrote this post somewhere on a different forum. Let me just go copy and paste it back here.

Someone asked me when the next Convoy For Babies (CFB) Orphanage Run will take place so I'm posting a "survey" here to see who else may be interested. I'd like to get a handful of people interested so in case a few drop out, then we'd still have a convoy.

I'm thinking of Christmas-time, either December 22nd or December 29th. What do you think?

The 22nd gives you the "I'm doing this FOR Christmas" feeling while the 29th gives you the Christmas to News Years "Swing" feeling/lull where you may be in the mood to do some charity work.

So post a reply if you have an opinion on either date and if you're interested in going.

This would be a short charity event for folks around Hồ Chí Minh City in the South as Expats in the North have the Stars of Vietnam Hải Dương Charity event organized by l3ully.

I also did visit another orphanage/shelter nearby but they have fewer babies and more physically and mentally disabled people, including old/dying men. The place is very sad as it looks like a zoo for unwanted humans. They would definitely would need some Christmas cheer and Christmas gifts/toys to lighten up their miserable lives (the word "miserable" actually is in the shelter's "logo"/"motto"). Not sure if you guys can stomach it but it's an option if the convoy wants to go there too.
Last edited by Tran Hung Dao (2013-11-28 07:28:33)

I added this to the Forum Calendar.

[mia2013]

I wanna make a donation, what's the best route?

[Admin]

Dec 6, 2013 22:10:05 GMT 7 mia2013 said:

I wanna make a donation, what's the best route?

You're the first person that asked that question. I'm assuming you're still in the USA and want to wire it. If that's the case, I think Western Union. But I will research more on this.

When are you coming to Việt Nam?

[mia2013]

I am trying for February. Meanwhile, get your booty to work and find out how I can send my donation!

[tranhungdao]

Dec 7, 2013 1:42:08 GMT 7 mia2013 said:

I am trying for February. Meanwhile, get your booty to work and find out how I can send my donation!

Thank you for wanting to get involved.  

Here is the general academic website for transfering money internationally.  
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_transfer#International

Looks like we need to go through the SWIFT system if transfering from bank to bank (I'll come back here to discuss this in a second).

My booty did some digging and found two popoular ways of sending money to Việt Nam:

1) quasi-banks ..i.e. Western Union.  This website has some of the fees as well as the prominent players.

remittanceprices.worldbank.org/en/corridor/United-States/Vietnam

So you can pick one of those services if you want to go that route.  You would have to go to a branch office there and send me your donated funds, then I would have to go to a bank here and retrieve the funds.  It seems some services there do allow for a direct into account receipt.

2) bank to bank wire transfers (the SWIFT discussion here)

Today I went to a bank and asked questions about how to receive donations from a) within Việt Nam and b) from overseas.  

a) The sending money inside Việt Nam is easy as banks just need the name of account, account number and the name of the bank of the receiving acount to send money to.  Just like what l3ully set up to receive donations for the Stars of Vietnam charity project in Hải Dương province.  So Expats who are already here but living far away can donate just by going in their bank branch and wiring money into the Charity account that I just set up.  I set up this account in VND (local currency)

b) The overseas transfer, i.e. from the USA to the Charity account in Việt Nam can be done through the SWIFT system.  In addition to the SWIFT code, your bank will need the name of the account, the account number.  I have set this account up in USD (American Dollars) to accept international transfers.  

Depending on what method you want to go, I can message you with the sensitive information.  I recommend sending 10% of whatever you donate as a front-runner/scout party so that if anything goes wrong, it's not a huge screw-up.  Once it works, then send the other 90%.  

I am now thinking of proposing December 22nd as the date for the next Convoy For Babies (CFB) Run...gets people in the Christmas mood.