We did it! You raised enough money to build our xkcd school in Laos

schoolchildrenWe couldn’t have done it without you. We aimed to raise $32,000 for Room To Read to construct The Kengthan Incomplete Primary School in Laos (don’t be troubled about the ‘incomplete’ part, that’s just a tricky translation from Lao to describe the education level – it’s going to be 100% complete when it’s built). It wouldn’t be very helpful if we built a school that, for instance, were missing two walls.

Our fundraising events in New York and Silicon Valley alone brought in over $30,000 in generous donations from attendees, but we were pushed [well] over the top through book sales (all of our publisher profits are being donated to Room To Read). So even if you couldn’t attend, you helped by buying a book, and even if you didn’t buy a book, you helped by spreading the word, and if you didn’t do any of those things, that’s OK, too.

You can live vicariously through some of our event photos here.

We’ll be looking for help to write the dedication plaque to be placed in the completed school next week, but in the meantime, we thought we’d share some photos from Laos. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, the xkcd school is in Salavan Province on Road No. 13 South. (Breadpig will be doing a site inspection next year once construction is complete).

old school
Here is their current school.
current school interior
Those aren’t skylights. The holes in the roof make rainy season rather challenging.

And here’s the xkcd school – already under construction!

xkcd school under construction
So far so good.
xkcd school exterior
It’s still missing a dedication plaque, but it won’t be much longer…

Filed Under: AnnouncementsNot Being Evilxkcd book

Tags: , , ,

About the Author

Before retiring as reddit co-founder, Alexis Ohanian founded Breadpig in late 2008 as an uncorporation for creating (and selling) geeky things with the purpose of making the world suck less. It's recently expanded to report on all the ways people worldwide are creating & hacking to improve their lives. He's also an angel investor and thinks hummus is awesome. Follow him on twitter, click here.
  • ashley
    I love that you guys did this!! it is so cool to see such a real and concrete difference made in the world - thanks in part to webcomics! go xkcd and breadpig!!
  • school looks nice. great for the kids.
  • Breadpig is going to do a proper site inspection once classes get underway in 2010. Keep an eye on the blog for the video/photos. We'll bring along a few xkcd books, too, just to see what kind of reaction they elicit...
  • indieprincess
    So awesome. I shall hug my autographed book even tighter now knowing it helped!
  • Cameron
    Like you weren't going to hug something from Randall tight anyway :)
  • I approve! The world needs more book hugging anyway.
  • joeldi
    Now that the target's reached, where do the rest of the profits go? I'm thinking I'll buy the book next payday.
  • Thanks for getting a copy (or at least planning on it - heh). We're going to look into possibly another Room To Read school -- or at least some of their smaller projects (with the year quickly coming to an end, most of their school constructions have been already funded). Either way, all the profits are still going to RtR; we'll be outlining it all here on the blog.
  • circlestep
    This is truly awesome! Thank you for doing this! My wife is from the part of Thailand closest to Laos, and her parents are schoolteachers, so needless to say I've seen first hand the good work that a (relatively) small amount of money can do over there. So awesome that you can help these kids!
  • Randall has chosen a dedication from all the suggestions on his blag and we'll publish photos of the plaque as soon as we have them. More photos from the site to come, too, along with a possible site visit in early 2010. I think breadpig will even deliver them a few xkcd books.
  • Alexander
    I don't have much to say, except awesome-bo-blossum!
  • Banana-fanna-fo-fossum? Yes!
  • truly amazing!
  • And it couldn't have happened if not for the readers of xkcd! Another thing to add to the awesome list.
  • medium
    Wow! I didn't realize that I would be helping build a school! It must be absolutely crazy to them that their school is being built because some guy across the world drew some stick figures. Oh wait, it sounds crazy to me!
  • Then again given that xkcd fans tend to be geeks can we all say yay education?
  • Hugomanen
    yay education!
  • Yay education!
  • Congratulations! A great cause and an incredible achievement. No one should grow up illiterate.
  • Furthermore, no one should grow up without xkcd!
  • Do they each get an OLPC?
  • Hadn't planned on it. But I'll talk to the OLPC folks about this. Great idea.
  • Name
    You could have just demanded to the residents:
    sudo build xkcd school.
    And spent the rest of the money on the dedication plaque :P.
  • me!
    Thats what SHE said
  • It would have been a glorious dedication plaque for that kind of coin ;)
  • theblahmonster
    Hey cool, I'm going to be in Laos around May of next year.
  • I think you could figure out a visit. I'm hoping to go for a visit in January, with a suitcase full of xkcd books for the kids to be perplexed by.
blog comments powered by Disqus