Civil Service Commission Exec. Makes Charitable Cambodian Journey

Our Civil Service Commission’s Executive Officer Patt Zamary recently journeyed to Cambodia with a local charity that raises money to improve the lives of impoverished villagers in the nation over 8,000 miles away.

The highlight of the journey for Zamary and her 26 fellow travelers was seeing the Cambodia Village Fund’s greatest accomplishment so far: a new school building for the Kaun Khlong Primary School.  Kuan Khlong is a rural village near Battambang, the second largest city in Cambodia.

Zamary, who had donated to the fund for several years but had never visited Cambodia before the January trip, recalled the experience this week with emotion in her voice.

“The children were so wonderful—and there’s so many of them,” she said. “There’s such poverty there.”

Cambodia is still recovering from the devastating Khmer Rouge regime that controlled the country in the mid-70s. Under the Khmer Rouge, millions of Cambodians were moved out of cities and placed in rural work camps. Hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of Cambodians were killed by the brutal regime. 

Zamary connected to the far away land’s plight through her friend, a former County employee, Bill Bamberger.

Bamberger, an economist in the Department of Planning and Land Use two decades ago, founded the Cambodia Village Fund with his wife Nancy in 2006, Zamary said.

The Bambergers were inspired by Nancy Bamberger’s Cambodian hairdresser, who described the great poverty and need in her native village.

For Zamary, supporting the fund had been a way to support her friends and a cause close to them. But now that she’s been to Cambodia, she plans getting even more involved.

“It really sealed my commitment to that organization,” she said.  

View a short and colorful video about the trip Zamary, the Bambergers and their group made to Cambodia and the work of the Cambodia Village Fund.