Dear Friends,

We would like to introduce ourselves as the ShelterBox Response team currently on deployment in China. We are Pat Prendergast, Tom Lay, Peter Clouting, and Matt Roberts; all working as volunteers for shelterbox in the earthquake hit province of Sichuan.
Since the teams arrival in Chengdu on the 20-5-08 we have travelled to different areas affected by the earthquake and have been making assessments as to where we feel the shelterbox aid would be most effective. We have also been working to ensure the boxes arrive in Chengdu as smoothly as possible and have been lucky enough to have the help of many Chengdu/Chinese residents. We are very appreciative of this help and without them it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to meet our objective of getting as many boxes as possible to the people who need them most.
As you can appreciate due to the circumstances in the areas we are trying to deliver the boxes, our plans are changing daily; but we hope to very soon have up to 200 boxes (with aid for 2000 people) ready to be transported to some of the areas we have assessed, and where we know there is a continuing need for shelter.
We have plans for further boxes which are in transit at the moment, but with the army’s rescue effort being so efficient, we cannot as yet designate areas for distribution. Our goal will be to get them to the people most in need as soon as possible.

I hope this gives you an overview of the work ShelterBox is doing in Sichuan, and we hope to regularly update you on our progress. Hopefully by the next installment we shall have distributed some of the Shelterboxes to the people and we look forward to being able to bring you news of this.

Thankyou for your continued support and interest,

Pat, Tom, Peter and Matt

The ShelterBox response team

A man in the rubble of a house destroyed by the earthquake in the region of Qingchuan.

Tags: shelterbox