Fundraiser for 'A Gift for the Village' project on Sunday May 13.

The Water Heater is hosting a fundraiser for “A Gift for the Village” project, Sunday May 13. Read below to find out more...

This is a project inspired by the connections made between Blacksburg painter and Virginia Tech faculty member Jane Vance, her friend Jenna Swann, Roanoke film maker Tom Landon, and a Buddhist lama from a remote village in the mountains of Nepal named Amchi Tsampa Ngawang Lama.

Tsampa and Jane are long-time friends, and in 2001 Jane and Jenna traveled to India and Nepal and spent time trekking in Nepal with Tsampa. Jenna was traveling as the first winner of the McGlothlin Award for Teaching Excellence, an annual $25,000 prize given to school teachers in our region by the McGlothlin Foundation of Bristol, VA and administered by our local public television station.

Upon their return Jane and Jenna teamed up with Landon, a television producer, to create the award-winning documentary, “Into Nepal.” Also around that time, Jane began collaborating with Tsampa and was asked to paint his likeness and tell his family history. The result is a huge, beautiful painting, called “Amchi,” whose destiny is to hang in a monastery in a place of honor in Jomsom, Tsampa’s village, where a special room is being built for it. This project has received the blessing of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Our team of seven trekkers from the Roanoke and New River Valleys includes Vance, Swann, Landon, photographer Sherrie Austin, guide Jason Swann, teacher Reba Hoffman, and Unity Minister Diane Scribner Clevenger. We’ll be departing on June 15 and carrying the painting to Jomsom and producing a documentary about the project. Before we go, we’d like to give as many people as possible the chance to see this amazing painting, and to ask for financial support for our project. The last chance to see this painting in Virginia will happen on May 13 at an event hosted by Frances and Lee West at the Water Heater gallery in Roanoke. If you don’t come, you’ll have to trek to Nepal to see “Amchi.” Even if you can’t support the project, we hope you’ll come and be a part of our journey. To see the painting and to find out more, go to our website at www.agiftforthevillage.com.

written by Tom Landon