The Vietnam Project — a nonprofit humanitarian organization founded in
1999 by Santa Feans Marv Freedman and Janie Oakes to improve the quality of life for disabled and disadvantaged people in Vietnam — pays no rent, no utilities, no salaries and no travel expenses. Board members receive neither stipends nor expense accounts.

According to published financial reports, in the past four years, exactly zero percent of the money raised by the project has been diverted to overhead or other administrative expenses — a claim few in the nonprofit world can match.

Almost all the money raised by The Vietnam Project — 99.9 percent, Freedman said — is distributed in Vietnam by Freedman and his wife, Kim Phuong Nguyen, or other board members, who visit the country at their own expense two to three times a year to meet and evaluate potential grant recipients referred to them by local contacts or Peoples Committees in small towns and villages.

Freedman first visited Vietnam in 1965 as a U.S. Marine. As part of an experimental program in which the Marines sent a squad to live in a village near Hue, he got to know Vietnamese people. "I got to know Vietnamese people as people instead of as the anonymous faceless enemy," he said, "so I had a connection that very few people in the American service got to have."

He returned to Vietnam in 1995 out of curiosity, he said, and went to the village in which he had lived in the mid-'60s, where he found people he knew. "The country just grabbed me," Freedman said, and he started going back regularly, sometimes as often as three times a year.

Once he got past his tourist stage, though, he wanted to help some of the people he was meeting. "I started doing some little things with the guidance of Vietnamese friends," he said, noting that Vietnam is not a country in which you can just show up and ask a lot of questions to find out what's most needed. "You have to be present and establish relationships," Freedman said. "That's how you learn things, and that's how the work gets done."

During a visit to a hospital in an outlying province, Freedman learned the institution had no incubator, so hundreds of babies born prematurely were dying each year. He thought he might be able to pick up a used incubator in the states for about $1,000 and mentioned the idea to his friend Janie Oakes.

A couple of weeks later, he received two unsolicited checks in the mail — one from Oakes and another from a friend of hers. Those two checks became the inspiration for The Vietnam Project, which was granted 501c3 status as a public charity in 2000.

Over time, the project raised more money and added more board members, who now number eight and include physician Raphiel Benjamin, attorneys Janet Clow and Aseneth Kepler, and professor and former foreign service officer Todd Greentree.

The model for charitable giving that Freedman and Oakes established is person-to-person, with no third parties or government agencies involved. "We take the money we've budgeted to the country ourselves," Freedman said. "We don't want to be the rich Americans coming and saying, 'Look what we are going to do for you.' We always try to do things that are culturally appropriate."

Kim Phuong Nguyen — whom Freedman met in Vietnam in 1999 and married there in 2001 — grew up in the Mekong Delta and helps ensure program initiatives are socially appropriate and its funds are well-spent.

The Vietnam Project prides itself on working one-on-one with the people it assists. During their visits, program representatives buy all needed supplies — from home-building materials to school textbooks to food-stall display cases — and pay all grant-related expenses and contractors.

Most of the grants follow the project's goal of helping people help themselves: vocational training, scholarships and other educational assistance; start-up of small businesses that will allow people to support themselves and their families; construction of homes for those who need shelter; and other assistance to struggling families.

Heart surgery for children became a part of the program when Freedman was presented with children in need. One of the newer projects undertaken by the organization addresses the ongoing need for clean water in the dry season by helping families buy water storage containers. (For more detailed descriptions of each type of assistance, the amount spent in various years and portraits of individuals helped, visit the project's Web site, www.vietnamproject.org.)

The high rate of exchange between Vietnamese and American currency helps the project's funds go a long way — a small business can be set up for less than $200, an earthenware storage jar for water costs about $10, a 32-square-meter house can be built for less than about $650 in labor and materials, and heart surgery for a child performed by a physician trained by a famous French heart surgeon averages $3,000 per patient. "Every time I'm there, it blows me away how much we can do for what to us is so little," Freedman said.

Still, although the project has been raising between $30,000 and $37,000 per year for the past few years, there is never quite enough money to meet all the needs identified, he said.

Meals raise funds

One of the major ways The Vietnam Project raises money for its efforts is by asking people to host special fundraising dinners in their homes. Kim Phuong Nguyen prepares an authentic Vietnamese meal — which requires several hours of chopping and prepping fresh ingredients — with the assistance of project board members. The goal of each of the dinners, Freedman said, is to raise about $1,000 for the project.

Vietnam Project dinner hosts are responsible for supplying the setting, inviting the guests — with a suggested contribution of about $100 per guest — and paying the food costs, which average a few hundred dollars. Ten guests per dinner are usual, but the project has had as many as 25 at an event, Freedman said. No additional solicitations for money occur during the evening. "We make a point of not doing that," he said.

The project's interest in the dinners is two-fold, Freedman said. They not only raise funds for the program; they also introduce people who don't know about the project to its work.


Marv Freedman and Kim Phuong Nguyen will be in Vietnam doing project work until mid-February. For more information about The Vietnam Project and its fundraising dinners, to arrange to host a dinner or to make a direct donation, call board member Janie Oakes at 988-2905 or log onto www.vietnamproject.org.


The recipes that follow are from Kim Phuong Nguyen. They are among the special dishes she prepares and serves at fundraising dinners for The Vietnam Project.

GOI TOM
Green Papaya Shrimp Salad
(Serves 6)

1/2 green papaya*
1-1/2 tablespoons salt
5 tablespoons sugar
2 Thai Bird chiles*
1 teaspoon fish sauce*
4 key limes
1 teaspoon chile garlic sauce*
1 small carrot
20 rau ram leaves*
1/2 pound steamed shrimp
1/4 cup raw peanuts

Peel, seed and grate the papaya. Put 11/2 tablespoons salt in a large bowl of water and soak the papaya for three minutes, gently squeezing by hand. Drain and rinse three times, and then dry in a salad spinner.

In a small mixing bowl, put 5 tablespoons sugar, 2 chopped and seeded Thai Bird chiles,
1 teaspoon fish sauce, juice of 4 key limes, 1 teaspoon chile garlic sauce and a pinch of
salt and mix until sugar is dissolved.

Finely grate the small carrot and mix in with papaya. Chop and add rau ram leaves. Add
the cooked shrimp. Pour the sauce over the papaya and mix with chopsticks until the papaya is completely coated. Cover and set aside; do not refrigerate.

Roast the peanuts until browned, then coarsely crush. Sprinkle on top of each serving.

*These ingredients can be purchased at Asian markets such as Ta Lin in Albuquerque.

BUN BO XAO XA OT
Lemon Grass Chile Beef over Rice Stick Noodles
(Serves 6)

2 (14-ounce) packages rice stick noodles*
2 pounds top sirloin
1/4 cup raw peanuts
1 small carrot
4 tablespoons sugar
2 key limes
3/4 cup spring roll fish sauce*
1 teaspoon garlic powder
3 Thai Bird chiles*
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons chile garlic sauce*
2 stalks lemon grass*
1 head Romaine lettuce
1 cucumber
6 sprigs mint
6 sprigs cilantro
1/2 pound bean sprouts
1 yellow onion
3 tablespoons oil

Boil the rice stick noodles until soft. Run cold water into the pot and drain several times until the water runs clear. Pick up small bunches of noodles by hand, very gently squeeze out excess water, place in a colander and set aside.

Roast the peanuts, crush coarsely and set aside. Grate the carrot and set aside.

Mix 3 tablespoons sugar, juice of 2 key limes and 3/4 cup hot water until sugar is dissolved. Add 3/4 cup spring roll fish sauce, 1 clove minced garlic and 1 seeded and chopped Thai Bird chile. Mix and set aside.

Cut the top sirloin with the grain into 11/2-inch strips. Then cut across the grain into 1/8-inch slices. It's easier to get very thin slices if the meat is slightly frozen.

Mix 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 tablespoon salt, 3 tablespoons chile garlic sauce and 2 seeded and chopped Thai Bird chiles. Mix well with sliced meat and refrigerate 1/2 hour or more.

Finely chop the lemon grass, discarding the outer layers. Mix with one clove minced garlic and set aside.

Coarsely chop the lettuce, cucumber, mint and cilantro and mix with the bean sprouts and set aside.

Final preparation is done just before serving. Divide the vegetables into six portions and place a layer on the bottom of each individual serving bowl. Place a generous portion of noodles on top of the vegetables. The noodles for this dish are served at room temperature or lukewarm, and are not reheated before serving.

Slice and stir-fry the onion over medium high heat in one tablespoon oil until lightly browned and put on top of noodles in each bowl.

Put lemon grass and minced garlic in 2 tablespoons oil in a wok over high heat and stir fry for 10 seconds. Add the meat and stir fry until just browned. Remove from wok and reduce the remaining liquid to one third, still at high heat. Put the meat back in the wok and stir-fry another 10 seconds, then place on top of noodles and onions in each bowl and serve.

Spoon fish sauce over noodles to taste, top with a little grated carrot and roasted peanut, and mix everything together with chopsticks before eating.

*These ingredients can be purchased at Asian markets such as Ta Lin in Albuquerque.