“Some people who we helped that first week were tourists who had lost their children or friends and everything they had with them in Thailand, including clothing, passports and cell phones,” recalled Angela Rockett Kirwin of Ventura, who was on vacation with her husband when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake resulted in the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami.

“Most who we ended up helping were local residents along the coast who lost friends, parents, homes, businesses — everything,” she said.

With donated funds and a reputable local nonprofit agency, the Kirwins set up an educational fund for tsunami orphans, from which numerous girls have received scholarships.

“After our tsunami relief experience, we realized that helping others does not require special credentials or skills — only a desire to help, local contacts and cultural sensitivity,” Angela said.

With that, the couple launched the Kirwin International Relief Foundation.

Established in January 2005, KIRF is “a 100 percent volunteer organization with over 90 percent of its donations going directly to help people in need in the form of in-kind gifts and services,” Angela said.

The organization is client-driven and uses local experts and informal aid networks such as local schools, healthcare clinics and religious organizations.

So far, this model has worked well in helping hard-to-reach communities with socio-economic and political barriers to get adequate aid, she said.

For instance, “using our local expert/informal aid network model, we were one of the few international nonprofits to get needed relief supplies into Burma last year that helped the Cyclone Nargis victims through a network of Buddhist monasteries.”

Among other efforts, KIRF donated medical and food supplies to Mae Tao Clinic in Mae Sot, Thailand, which treats political and economic refugees from Burma for wounds such as land-mine disfigurements, infections, disease and malnutrition.

In Bihar, India, KIRF provided funds and well-repair services to enable rural villagers to have adequate water for life and farming during drought.

In Arusha, Tanzania, KIRF donated laptops, pencils and paper to community service youth groups at several schools. In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the organization purchased and delivered doors, school supplies and rice for Lighthouse Orphanage.

Most recently, the Kirwins — along with their children, 12-year-old Kai and 9-year-old Makani — engaged in a family service project in Washington, D.C., where they tapped into the expertise of a nonprofit called Homeless Children's Playtime Project. With this assistance, the Kirwin family was able to provide educational toys, sports equipment, a music system and furnishings for homeless children at the area’s transitional living shelter.

“What sets KIRF apart is we are directly there, whether it’s an earthquake, tsunami or a school that needs books,” said Mark Kirwin, an attorney with Haffner, Haffner & Kirwin in Ventura. “There’s not a middle person. We go out and make assessments, interview people and find out what they need shop locally and deliver the items ourselves.”

The goals of KIRF are to reduce suffering and assist people, his wife added.

“We try to help people help themselves regain a healthful and locally acceptable standard of living and economic self-sufficiency,” she said.

For more information about KIRF or to make a donation, go to http://www.kirfaid.org.

Ventura Country Star: "Ventura family fulfilling needs worldwide", February 18, 2009 >

Ventura County Star newspaper article about KIRF published February 18, 2009 (PDF, 10.3 MB) >

Copyright, 2009, Ventura County Star

2007

Student Voice
VCNews.net

Volunteer aids other women’s independence
Author: Abraham Ruelas, Ventura College
Issue: March 2007

Ventura College marked International Women’s Day March 8 on the lawn of the Learning Resource Center, as part of Women’s History Month activities at the college. Angela Kirwin, a Ventura College women’s re-entry student, represented the Kirwin International Relief Foundation, a nonprofit organization she co-founded with her husband, Mark Kirwin.

KIRF helps “impoverished women gain economic self-sufficiency through micro-loans in India and entrepreneurial projects in Thailand and Tanzania," Kirwin said.

Kirwin will give a lecture at 11:30 a.m. March 21 in Guthrie Hall about her experiences trying to help the people of those countries.

At the International Women’s Day event, Kirwin was selling baked goods and handicrafts to raise money for the foundation’s work, and said that 100 percent of the proceeds help emancipate the women of India, Thailand and Tanzania. Emancipation is “not for the women here, but for the women in other countries who are forced to be dependent on men,” she said.

KIRF also has helped with the healthcare needs of 471 orphaned children in Thailand whose mothers have died of AIDS, the KIRF Web site said.

“I love her foundation and what she does,” said Jillian Bossoletti, 21, a Ventura College student and representative of the Anthropology Club. "I didn't know how many orphan kids there are in Thailand," Bossoletti said.

Flipping through Kirwin's photo book on the display table, VC student Kristina Vega, 20, said, "I saw pictures of kids looking for help. “I bought a passport holder and a brownie,” Vega said.

"The passport holder was made by a woman who is HIV positive," Kirwin said. “But the brownies were made by me.”

“Seriously, the brownies are seriously good,” VC student Kevin Garvey, 19, said.

“I have raised over $500 selling baked goods,” Kirwin said.

"I wish she was selling more stuff so I can contribute more,” Vega said.

As VC student Michael Wuergfer, 21, paused over a picture of a hut, he said, "Looking at the pictures like that one, it makes me appreciate what we have.” “They don't know any different,” Wuergfer said.

KIRF wants to make a difference.

2006

Citations - Ventura County Bar Association
VCBA.org

Extraordinary People Among Us
Author: Loye M. Barton
Issue: February 2006
Section: President's Message


I believe that attorneys as a group are at the top of the list when it comes to being philanthropic, dedicated to community service and responsive to the needs of others. Sometimes an extraordinary event results in the emergence of an extraordinary person.

On December 26, 2004, attorney P. Mark Kirwin, his wife Angela and their two children were in Thailand. They were scheduled to stay at the Andaman Sea Resort on the coast , but changed their plans and stayed inland nearer the mountains. The Andaman Sea Resoirt was washed away the tsunami. The Kirwin family survived when they surely would have perished but for a change of plans.

There are many paths that Mark and his family could have followed that day. Imagine being in the midst of a devastation that for most of us was images on the news. The devastation of the tsunami led the Kirwins to a remarkable new venture.

During the week that the Kirwins were stranded in Thailand, Mark first used all his cash resources to buy food and water to distribute to the hungry and thirsty. Mark and Angela worked in shifts helping the victims by delivering aid or helping in the hospiral while also caring for their own children and trying to protect them from the despair that followed the disaster….

2005

VC LIfe & Style Magazine
VenturaLifeandStyle.com

Raising Mississippi
Author: Amy Jones and Angela Kirwin with Tim Burdick, photographer
Issue: Winter 2005/2006

We follow up on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Angela Kirwin's efforts to help those who lost everything....


The Pierpont Inn & Racquet Club Sidelines Newsletter
PierpontRC.com

Member Profile: Kirwin Family
Author: Editor
Issue: December 2005
Section: Member Profile

Three years ago life was normal for the Kirwin family. Mark was working as an attorney-mediator while Angela worked as a web developer at Patagonia, Inc.....


Roots & Shoots Newsletter
RootsandShoots.org

Roots & Shoots groups dive into Hurricane Katrina efforts
Author: Elan Wang
Issue: Fall/Winter 2005

After Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in late August, Kirwin Family R&S leader Angela Kirwin of Ventura, California immediately jumped into action. While her children raised money by collecting spare change in mason jars at school, Angela organized a fundraising dinner to benefit hurricane victims. Through the organization she co-founded, Kirwin International Relief Foundation, Angela has traveled to Mississippi twice to deliver supplies and care packages to need families, working with local R&S leader Dr. Penny Wallin of Picayune and Dr. Lynne Houston of Hattiesburg. Kirwin Family R&S is now working with Earth Hawks R&S of Ojai and Great Pacific Development Center R&S of Ventura to send holiday cards to children affected by the hurricane.

Copyright, 2005, The Jane Goodall Institute


Los Angeles Daily Journal
DailyJournal.com

Lifesaving Decision Leads Lawyer to Start Foundation
Author: Kenneth Davis
Issue: June 6, 2005
Section: Extra, Industry Watch, p.2

When Ventura attorney Mark Kirwin took his family on vacation last year, he had no idea that the experience would change his life forever….

Ventura County Star
VenturaCountyStar.com

Concert to help Thai victims:
Ventura man who survived launches tsunami effort
Author: Alicia Doyle
Date: January 14, 2005
Section: Local News and Opinion

A local man who survived the tsunami and helped the relief effort in Thailand has returned to the states to launch a fund-raiser to assist areas devastated by the disaster that resulted in more than 150,000 deaths.


Ventura resident Mark Kirwin will return to Thailand on Jan. 30 after collecting donations at the 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday benefit at Genijitsu Dojo, 1645 Donlon St., Suite 101, Ventura. He also hopes to reap donations of hammers, saws and other nonpowered tools.

"I will take all the money raised and convert it into travelers checks and meet with people we worked with during the relief effort," said Kirwin, who established the nonprofit Kirwin International Relief Fund upon his return to the United States. "We need to get them what they need."

Kirwin, an attorney, along with his wife, Angela, and brother, Stephen, were halfway through their vacation when the 9.0 earthquake resulted in the devastating Dec. 26 tsunami.

"Everybody survived," Kirwin said. "We weren't at the beaches when the wave hit -- thank God."

Before the tsunami, Kirwin, his wife and brother spent time in Chaing Mai in the north, visiting Buddhist Wats, praying near monks and walking around a stuppa reflecting on the dharma of compassion and presence taught by Buddha. They wanted to travel to Ranong in the south on Christmas Day and made plans to catch the next boat to the islands on Dec. 26.

But then they decided to stay another day in Ranong.

"That boat that left on the 26th was not heard from again," Kirwin said. "If we had gone the next day, we would have been on the islands, Ko Phayam, on the 26th when the waves hit."

The night of the disaster, a local Thai man interrupted the television news at the restaurent where they were and plugged in his video camera, showing footage of the remains of the coastal jungle, "wiped clean like the bottom of a river bed with only a few trees here and there left standing," Kirwin recalled. "We all stood silently in shock at such devastation it was real. It was hell."

At a hospital, Angie comforted a man in a wheelchair, cut and bruised as if beaten repeatedly with a bat embedded with razor blades. His 3 1/2-month-old daughter was ripped out of his hands by the water. His other daughter was in a hospital 70 kilometers away, her condition unknown. His wife lay in the hospital room above.

"We survived," Kirwin said. "We had to help."

They spent several days helping in any way they could, comforting the afflicted and taking food and water to hospitals near Phuket and other areas. Working with the army, police and local officials, they gathered supplies and as much food as possible.

When the army became involved, they returned home.

"Now we live on, but all the suffering continues," Kirwin said. "The need is great, far greater than the American news leads us to believe."

Images of suffering and devastation still in his mind, Kirwin has already booked and paid for his end-of-the-month flight to Thailand.

Saturday's fund-raiser will feature two folk/bluegrass bands, food and beverages for a suggested donation of $20 or more.

"We'd be thankful for a dollar," Kirwin said. "That can do a lot in Thailand."

For more information or to make a donation, call Mark Kirwin at [phone number].

Copyright, 2005, Ventura County Star