What do you do when a $300,000 donation of clothing is delivered to your doorstep? The easy answer might be to pass it along to a local organization such as the Salvation Army. But Son Pham wanted more. "So I thought of starting something that involved kids in our neighborhood. Get them involved; help them learn that there are people who can use these items,"? he says.

The 18-pallet donation from Sears was referred to Pham by an acquaintance who knew Pham did a lot of work helping immigrants and refugees and thought he might have a use for the items. When Pham picked up the phone and accepted the donation, Kids Without Borders (KWB) began.

This was 2001, and KWB headquarters was Pham's Sammamish home office. With the help of his wife, Judy, who works for the Lake Washington School District, he was able to organize a group of area residents and students to participate in a sorting party to process the donation.

An unexpected effect of getting people together to work was a blurring of cultural and economic barriers. "It took [students] two seconds to start talking and become friends,"? Pham says. "They adapt very easily. Just bring them to the same table, doing the same thing with the same purpose, and they take down those imaginary borders."?

Then Pham took his work a step further, a step that was the reason he came across the Pacific Ocean. Currently the principal of U.S.-Asia Gateway LLC in Mill Creek and director of Performance Franchising Inc. in Bothell, Pham emigrated from Vietnam in 1975 during the last days of the Vietnam War. Now, through U.S.-Asia Gateway, an international business consulting firm, he facilitates frequent trips to Vietnam for clients interested in doing business in Southeast Asia.

Knowing Vietnam and having conducted business there, Pham developed the idea for KWB's HumaniTours, volunteer trips to that country that involve bringing items to villages in need and visiting orphanages, including the Go Vap orphanage in Saigon.

Pham recalled a visit to Go Vap five years ago, when he and others spent time with kids, including some with serious problems such as HIV and cleft palates. KWB, in partnership with the Greater Seattle Vietnam Association (GSVA), has set up two programs to help orphans break out of the poverty cycle. GSVA has provided funds for 40 students to go to school in Hai Phong and Nan Ren, Vietnam, and has delivered backpacks, rulers, pencils and clothing to the students.

The GSVA's Teaching English program helps orphans develop the skills they need to find jobs once they leave the orphanage, particularly in the large tourism industry, where speaking a second language is a must. The Teach Me To Fish program helps orphans and impoverished children get an education. The first beneficiary of the program, who inspired the creation of the program in the first place, was a child named Ha. She had amazing potential, says Pham, but her family did not have the money to put her through school. KWB stepped in, and Ha has since graduated from college and is now finishing her final year of medical school. The total cost for her education was $1,800, and her family no longer lives in poverty. "We also developed a person [Ha] committed to helping others," says Pham. On weekends, Ha takes her fellow medical students to the orphanage where they care for and give exams to infants.