CEF Ends the Year in Cambodia

Dan Rogers, CEF Board Chair It’s been a very exciting week. December 21 was the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. For many this is a time for reflection and “lighting the night”. Lantern festivals and Christmas lights abound in Vancouver. And we can now look forward to the days getting longer and the nights getting shorter.

My holiday season will be quieter than normal at first and then likely not so quiet after that.  I am one of three CEF Board members travelling on December 27 to Cambodia, with the first stop in Phnom Penh (I was advised to carry ear plugs for this vibrant city). Leah Lockhart, CEF Communications Chair, Sue Dick, CEF Projects Chair, and I are travelling together and stopping in Phnom Penh for four days en route to Siem Reap to meet up with one of our great project partners, Kids International Development Society. We will be joined in Siem Reap by Michael Glogowsky, our San Francisco based Board member, and Steven Errico, a fabulous commercial photographer from Vancouver who has contributed his work to CEF for most of our nine years of operation.

We will be travelling with KIDS founders Adrianne and Rick Lennert for seven or eight days, viewing projects we have funded and reviewing others we may fund in the future. This is such a great opportunity for us to see firsthand as “CEF ambassadors” the changes your work and donations have wrought. As with our trips to Ethiopia and Zambia, we will be blogging from Cambodia and posting pictures. Watch the CEF blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for updates as we learn, explore, and celebrate.

Whatever your reason for celebration, thank you for being part of the CEF family this past year and for watching us grow and change. It has been a great year and one of many challenges and changes. And there is more to come as we move towards our 10 year anniversary. All the best.