Whenever we can, we raise funds and pay for our own travel to disaster areas to help people who have been victimized by a natural or man-made disaster. In Thailand, during a family vacation and what ended up as our first experience of disaster relief doing tsunami relief, we helped foreign tourists injured by the waves at Ranong Hospital get in touch with family members and friends, get back home quickly and with dignity by providing clothing and phone service. We also helped local tsunami survivors who lived on the coast by purchasing a truck load of water and food care packages for them with help of local volunteers, police and rescue workers.

Since December 2004, KIRF volunteers have made more than many trips back to Thailand to help people regain their livelyhoods and a better future. In 2005 we purchased and delivered new boats and fishing supplies to a coastal village, purchase and send needed school supplies to several coastal schools, and have rescued an island population of Moken (nationless sea gypsies of the Andaman Sea) with everything from food staples, water, rain cachement barrels, mosquito nets, sarongs, cooking supplies and a fishing boat. KIRF purchased, delivered and supervised the construction of a sustainable fish farm cooperative that replaced the one destroyed by the tsunami. We have also been able to set up an educational fund for 54 orphaned children who had lost one or both of their parents to the deadly tsunami. We did this through the locally and international respected non-profit Population & Community Development Association (PDA) of Thailand.

KIRF has assisted families with needed living supplies along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi after Hurricance Katrina in the fall of 2005. Angela Kirwin, Co-Founder, made two trips to Mississippi and worked with a local school district and local volunteer humanitarians to help identify families and children in need and deliver relief.

At the beginning of 2006, Mark Kirwin, Director of KIRF travelled to India to help out with drought relief in the northern state of Bihar. With the assistance of local Indian Charitable Trust KIRF India, KIRF was able to provide sources of safe drinking water in poor rural villages after two years of drought by drilling seven new wells. In addition to the drought relief, KIRF has invested in micro-loan projects, has purchased school supplies such as curriculum text books and sports equipment as well as vocational training supplies such as sewing machines, textiles and sewing instruction.

KIRF assisted with drought relief in northern Tanzania with the assitance of local Roots & Shoots Youth Groups, a program of the Jane Goodall Insitute, during the summer of 2006.

Whenver possible (for example, when we have sufficient funds and a favorable exchange rate) KIRF incorporates sustainable development in disaster relief once immediate survival needs are met. In Thailand we purchased fishing boats and supplies for fisherman who had lost their source of livelihood when the tsunami destroyed their boats. Also, in Thailand we funded the building of a fish farm and ecological preserve guesthouse that now supports a co-operative of about 32 families.

In Peru, KIRF purchased and delivered school supplies to the Andean Village Huantan as well as textiles and food staples and toiletries needed by a battered women's shelter and sewing cooperative in Lima.

Sustainable development is very important in areas of chronic poverty and we strive to help people have a healthier and happier future by investing in captial good for small businesses and offering free literacy education through the KIRF India Educational Centers run by the Indian Charitable Trust KIRF India. We also have funded a micro-loan co-operative for woman and have drilled 7 new wells in a region suffering from drought. KIRF India also plants trees and engages in recycling programs and conservation education for the local recipients of its aid.

We won't have a society if we destroy the environment.

– Margaret Mead