A Visit To The Mercy Center Orphanage

The entrance to The Mercy Center.
Get directions here, or visit
their website here.

The front yard has been converted
to a beautiful playground.

Pattaya TV was there, intervieing
Steve's friends.

The large and well-stocked class
room and play room.

Fred Doell, director of The Mercy
Center, shows off the fellowship
hall.This afternoon, I gathered together with all of Steve Blumenthal's friends on the anniversary of his death at The Mercy Center orphanage... Steve's favorite charity. The truth is that I had never been to an orphanage before, and I wasn't sure what the place would be like, and I obviously can't say based on having seen The Mercy Center how it may compare to any other orphanage; however, I can say that I found the place to be pretty, friendly, well-stocked, well-staffed, and well-managed.

The Mercy Center consists of a large main house with a lovely grass-covered playground in the front yard. In front of that is a large parking lot separated from the playground by a fence, and off to the side is a monstrous, low, one-story building that used to be a diamond-cutting factory, but has been converted by the founder and director, Fred Doell, and his wife Dianne (two Canadians... Calgary) into play rooms, a fellowship hall, a library, offices, and storage (with plenty of room left over to grow). The Mercy Center currently houses 20 children, all under the age of 10, who are supervised by four farang adult employees living full-time on the premises, at least as many Thai employees, and at least as many other daily farang and Thai volunteers. The ratio of adults to children here is very high.

The children are raised by the Doell's as Christian, who figure that the kids get more than enough Buddhist teachings from their Thai caretakers, the Thai public school they attend, as well as just being in Thailand.


I arrived at the orphanage to a rather odd sight: All of Steve's friends were chatting in the parking lot, while all the kids they were ostensibly there to visit were on the playground playing. I immediately headed for the playground and started entertaining the kids with plane rides, tickling, ball tossing, and generally acting like a big goof. (I had to accept the fact that some of these kids have had a rough time of life, and their first instinct when confronted by a new adult was to punch or kick or throw a rock... but they were 5 or 6 years old, and weren't dangerous.) Epril and Maid Lee and TQ2 manager Wood's girlfriend Poo, being girls, immediately joined me on the playground and started having fun. (The newborn infant was a major attraction, of course.) The guys still stood around outside though.

Eventually, I went out and reminded a few of the guys that (a) we were here because of Steve, and (b) we should try and do what Steve would do if he were here. Of course, with Steve having been the ultimate big kid, for whom nothing was more important than a child's happiness, the guys knew immediately what they needed to do, and one by one, all the old (or only moderately-old) farangs came in and sat down with the kids, and had some fun playing around. It was really nice to see. We could be certain that Steve was smiling down on this moment.

You know: Any time you would like, you yourself can stop by The Mercy Center and visit with Fred and Diane and the kids. Just showing up and saying hello, believe it or not, is immensely helpful: Once you've seen the place, met Fred and Diane, hugged a kid... then the rest is easy. You can help out if you want, check whether they need anything (they always do), or just see what the place is all about. A donation of your time is more than acceptable, as any charity will tell you, but whatever you can afford to dig out of your wallet is especially welcome.

The lease on The Mercy Center is going to be up in a while, and this wonderful place may go away soon. Fred and Diane are currently trying to raise the funds to purchase the property so that The Mercy Center can stay and care for Thailand's orphans at this pretty place for the rest of their days, and beyond. The Mercy Center, I'm told, needs 12 million baht to do this, and so far has saved up 2 million. If there are any benefactors out there who can help The Mercy Center achieve this goal, now would be a good time to step forward.

Anyway, at the end of this day, 20 little Thai kids had been fed, taught, and loved, and had their unfortunate lives vastly improved by the folks at The Mercy Center. It really did my heart some good to be able to stop by and be a part of that today.

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By the way... I'm putting this blog entry down as "tourist stuff", mostly so that The Mercy Center will henceforth have it's own full-time place on my main page, but also because this is a place that people might want to consider visiting during a visit to Pattaya.