Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Sunday, May 11, 2008
Minnesota woman working to help cyclone survivors
WILLMAR, Minn. — While some international assistance is being kept out of Myanmar, a Minnesota woman is in the southeast Asian country hand-delivering rice and bottles of water to cyclone survivors.
Susan Semmler is from New London. She is in her fourth and final year of teaching at the International School of Yangon in Myanmar. She is using her own money to buy staples for those in need.
She is also trying to secure money, supplies and labor to rebuild homes destroyed by the cyclone.
Semmler says that before she leaves the country at the end of the month, she will set up a network of Burmese people to repair a heavily damaged Baptist church in Yangon.
In a journal entry sent to her family in west-central Minnesota, Semmler says that each time a roof goes up, it gives people hope.
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