First Official Hearts Company Trip To Cambodia

The Hearts Company originally started by an idea, created by three girls with a common goal. To help bring educational resources to children in need in underdeveloped countries. The original plan was to come to this village and provide almost 200 kids with enough school supplies to sustain them for the rest of the year. We worked endlessly for weeks to get all the school supplies sorted out, fundraising and coordinating of the trip with our contacts in Cambodia and somehow, everything fell into place. Before we knew it we had raised over $10,000 to help the children in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

We made our way to Cambodia without knowing what to expect, just three girls with an idea and an amazing support system of people to help back up that idea. What we experienced in Siem Reap went beyond all of our expectations. To stand in front a huge pile of school supplies ready to individually fill and hand-deliver over 250 backpacks left us in awe and thinking, “WOW we actually did this.”

All of the school supplies purchased by the amazing generosity of our donors.

It was finally the big day, everything we have worked for the last 2 months came down to this one day. We woke up early that day and with the help of very generous locals we loaded up about 3 TUK-TUKS with all the supplies. The anticipation just kept building up from there as we made our way to the village. We expected to get to this village school and simply drop off the supplies and interact with some locals and call it a day. However, what came next changed us forever.

As we got closer we saw all these kids lined up outside the school and we thought, “This couldn’t possibly be for us.” We were mistaken, they had an entire ceremony put together for our arrival. The tears we had to hold back where so real, shaking from surprise and excitement we couldn't believe what was happening, all the attention was on us. We were greeted by music and kids screaming hello and waving. Seeing first hand the happiness in each child's face and the amount of gratitude over something that is so small for us had us speechless and feeling undeserving. The fact that the village put together an entire ceremony dedicated to us, had songs prepared and handmade bracelets showed us how much of an impact these school supplies really where to the community and to these children's futures.

Receiving bracelets made by each individual student as a thank you for all the supplies we had brought to them and the school.

After the ceremony ended we wanted to make sure to interview the principal of the school, Chhaiky. This was an interview that ended in many tears and with no words. We started by interviewing her and her husband, which was our contact in Cambodia that had been helping us organize the entire trip. In the middle of the interview she asked if she could speak with us without her husband. So, he left, and she told us her story.

She told us her passion for these kids futures and her fear that she could no longer handle the amount of children starting to attend the school, seeing as the school was only run by her and one other teacher. She explained that she took a portion of her salary, which was only $1,200 a year and shared it with the other teacher there so they would not leave, this left her with little to nothing. Her story blew us away, how could someone be so compassionate to where she left herself with almost nothing in order to sustain these kids’ future. WE HAD TO DO SOMETHING.

We got back to our hostel, made a short video explaining her story and how we wanted to help. In just 24 hours, on our last day in Cambodia , we raised over $3,000 dollars!!!! Then we donated our last amount of funds all to her, so a total of $4,000 was given to her. When we surprised her with the money and told her we wanted her to use the money however she wanted for all that she had done, but as we suspected, she immediately started talking about how she could use the money for the school and within a week, was able to hire another teacher. Once again being so selfless for something that was meant for her and her family.

We can't express in words enough how life-changing this trip was to us and everyone involved. We only hope you join us next summer on our Hearts Company Group Trips to experience this first hand.