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State, The (Columbia, SC)
January 6, 2005
Section: METRO/REGION
Edition: FINAL
Page: B1
COLUMBIA MAN ON MISSION TO HELP DEVASTATED AREAS
MAURICE THOMAS
STAFF WRITER
Tucker McCravy was
in Columbia on winter break from Harvard when an earthquake and tsunami
devastated several Indian Ocean countries in Southern Asia.McCravy,
33, who speaks Japanese, French, Thai, and Tamil and Sinhalese, both
spoken in Sri Lanka, wanted to do something to help. He traveled and
taught English in the area for 10 years and in the last few years
worked as an educational consultant. |
| He will leave Columbia
on Sunday and spend three weeks in Sri Lanka, where he will team up
with about 80 international volunteers."I will be a translator
of sorts, helping with distribution and coordination of aid," said
McCravy, who lived in Sri Lanka from 1994 to 1998. McCravy will also
work with the assessment teams and serve as a media liaison.He
founded a nonprofit group, Serendib, which funds English immersion
camps in Sri Lanka and Thailand and girls' education in Benin West
Africa.He has raised $2,500 for aid and hopes South Carolinians
will help support his efforts to raise $15,000. The money will be used
to buy supplies needed in the disaster area."There is a bottleneck of aid, still some small components that are missing," McCravy said.For
example, he received an e-mail about an area that had gotten food and
water purification tablets, but had no cooking utensils to prepare the
food.He plans to work with the parts of the country not devastated to purchase needed items such as vitamins and medical supplies."We'll
be taking the human resources on the ground in the country and matching
them with resources gathered here in South Carolina and the U.S.," he
said.McCravy is the only boy in a family of five children. His sisters and parents are proud of him."We're
so used to Tucker doing incredible things," said his older sister,
Elizabeth McCravy, 35, who came from Charleston with her 11-month-old
daughter to help out.He started his own nonprofit group and has made some changes in the lives of people, she said.She has been to Sri Lanka in the past to visit her brother, as have her father, mother and another sibling, Emily.The
family was together in Columbia and saw the devastation from the
tsunami, Elizabeth McCravy said, and all have pitched in to help out.The
sisters have been running errands and handling media calls and
donations so their brother can finish his class work. He is working on
a master's degree before heading overseas."We brainstormed as a
family about what we could do," Elizabeth McCravy said. "We knew Tucker
would do something. We've done what we can do to stand behind him."The
house has been buzzing with phone calls from donors and visitors asking
how they can help, said Elizabeth McCravy, who will help coordinate
donations from Columbia.The family is hoping Tucker McCravy's local connections will help bring out donations from South Carolinians."He's
a local boy, and many people have been impressed with being able to
support an agency in South Carolina that is small enough so they can
see where their donations go," Elizabeth McCravy said.
Tucker McCravy is hoping to get a digital camera and other
equipment donated to help document his efforts in Sri Lanka.
Information regarding donations can be found on the Serendib Web site
at www.serendib.usReach Thomas at (803) 771-8570 or mtthomas@thestate.com.
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Illustration:PHOTO: COLOR
Tucker McCravy hopes South Carolinians will support his effort to raise $15,000 to aid victims of the tsunami. ERIK CAMPOS/THE STATE
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Copyright (c) 2005 The State
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