Nearly nine months after his daughter Aurora and six others lost their lives in the Ka Loko dam breach, resident Bruce Fehring is forging ahead with the plans Aurora had to help southeast Asian orphans before she died. Aurora Dingwall-Fehring,
Nearly nine months after his daughter Aurora and six others lost their lives in the Ka Loko dam breach, resident Bruce Fehring is forging ahead with the plans Aurora had to help southeast Asian orphans before she died.
Aurora Dingwall-Fehring, along with her husband Alan and son Rowan, died March 14 when the Ka Loko Reservoir dam burst and half a billion gallons of water rushed out along with it.
Friends Christina Macnees, her fiance Daniel Arroyo, Wayne Rotstein and Timothy Noonan also lost their lives that day.
Fehring, his wife Cyndee, and several other residents are trying to honor Aurora’s memory with the Aurora Project, which will benefit orphans in Thailand and Cambodia — something Aurora would have wanted, Fehring said.
“These were pet projects of (Aurora’s),” Fehring said. “There are a lot of refugee kids there.”
With the help of the Kauai Dam Breach Victims Memorial Fund and under the auspices of Kilauea-based Amicus.org, Fehring will be joined by 14 Kaua‘i residents, including six teens, in the visit to Asia beginning Dec. 9. About $18,000 will go to help the orphans. “That $18,000 is all earmarked for direct projects,” he said.
Expenses for the trip will come out of their own pockets, Fehring said.
The group will take medical and school supplies and 75 handmade cotton flannel blankets to the Children of the Forest Project in Sangkhlaburi, Thailand, and the Palm Tree School and Future Light Orphanage in Cambodia.
Residents interested in helping are invited this Sunday to the Church of the Pacific in Prince-ville, where there will be a silent auction and fund-raiser, Fehring said. The purpose of the event is to raise about $5,000 to go toward the $20,000-worth of trip costs, leaving about $1,000 per-person to be paid out of pocket. Any money raised above the $5,000 will go to the orphans, Fehring said.
At the event, residents who become sponsors will take a photograph with a blanket, which will be hand-delivered to an orphan by Fehring or a member of the group.
Conversely, pictures will be taken of the orphans receiving the blankets, and those will be given to the sponsors.
Those interested in helping also can donate clean, quality clothing that will be taken to the orphans, he added. The clothing should be small enough to fit one-year-olds to 15-year-olds, he said.
