The Chiang Mai Hash donates THB 10,000 to search and rescue charity

We are a silly organization that mostly does silly things and gets drunk. We also want to be regarded as "normal" or maybe even respected in our local community so we occasionally will do fundraisers to give things away to organizations based in Chiang Mai that we think are worth supporting.

Years ago we participated in giving away free food to poor families during Covid and I'm pretty sure this scored us a bunch of points with the local authorities. They provided us with police officers to ensure that nobody would harass us about the fact that a business was "open" but in reality we just needed a larger kitchen in order to prepare hundreds of take-away meals for the people of Chiang Mai since doing this in a regular home kitchen would have been impossible or at the minimum it would have taken ages to accomplish.

A couple of times a year we will do charity runs where we charge everyone, including members, a premium for a few weeks in order to raise money for these ends.

Despite our claims of being disorganized and not giving damn about our finances the actuality is that we probably keep better accounting than a lot of companies in Thailand do. We have a person who is dedicated to precisely this sort of thing and we are very accurate on our incomings and outgoings. Every now and then we will have a lot more cash on hand and we have a choice that can be made at that point: Either we can give away some shirts to our members - and most members already have 10 or more HHH shirts - or we can raise even more money and give it to charity.

The charity option is normally the one that ends up being selected not just because it adds a level of respectability to our groups but also because it is kind of the right thing to do. This year we selected the Chiang Mai Search and Rescue organization. This group is the people that if someone gets lost in the jungle or gets trapped in a tunnel, they are the ones that put forth an effort to get that person back. You may recall that they were heavily involved in the flooded cave mission a few years back that made international headlines and even garnered the attention of heavyweights like Elon Musk. They have helped us out on one occasion when one of our members appeared to be having a heart attack and we didn't know what to do because he was well in the woods and we were afraid to try to transport him. They came to the proverbial "rescue" on that day and got him out of the forest safely. Thankfully it was not a heart attack or even anything major, it was just a case of heat exhaustion which is still a very serious matter.

When it came time to decide who we were going to donate the extra funds to, this was an easy choice. I don't mean to get down on the official services that exist in Thailand but for the most part the governmental rescue options don't really exist and organizations like this one need funding in order to continue their operations. 10,000 Baht isn't exactly a huge sum of money, but in the terms of the average income of a Thai person, it is quite a generous one. We will likely make another contribution to this cause in the future because of all the charities that exist in this region, this is the one that we are most likely to use at some point in the future because there really isn't anyone else to call if one of our Hashers simply doesn't return to camp at the end of a trail run.

We were happy to do this and will do it again. Our efforts are a little bit self-serving because we want to be respected by the city, the province, and the people that live in it. Since our ranks consist almost entirely of foreigners, it is even more important that we are known and respected. Because of our mostly silly antics, people who are unfamiliar with us might presume that we are a just a bunch of weirdo drunks... we are weirdos and we do drink a lot of beer, but we are also responsible adults. Things like this kind of nail that point home. Other Hash chapters around the world routinely do things similar to this and in my mind, that is a very good thing.

Come run with us! All upcoming events, which have been at least 3 per week for a while now, can be found at our poorly made and barely functioning website.