Friends urged 87-year-old Ed Stanton not to travel to Sri Lanka where he was intent on going to donate up to $NZ100,000 to help tsunami victims.
“You’d be crazy to go,” warned one. “Terrorists are killing people there all the time."
Their concern was shared by Ed's wife, Pat, who tried to stop him by hiding his passport.

And, even as they talked, their fears seemed justified. Two Sri Lankan politicians were among six people in a van killed by gunmen on a main road in the district he was planning to visit.

But Ed, a retired Orewa businessman, had been “devastated" by television coverage of the Boxing Day, 2004, disaster and remained determined.
“I admire organisations such as the Red Cross but, in this instance, I felt the need to be personally involved,” he said. “I wanted to see how they’d be using my money. And, as for the dangers, well, you’ve got to go some time and I’d sooner go doing something worthwhile.”

He consulted Orewa accountant, Merv Huxford, a long-serving Rotarian, who through Rotary International connections sought advice from a disaster relief team formed by the Rotary Club of Kandy in Sri Lanka.

Kandy Rotarians suggested Ed Stanton might help the area around two east coast villages, Pandiruppu and Ulle, where the tsunami had claimed more than 500 lives, orphaning more than 400 children and destroying or damaging nearly 3,400 homes.

Trouble was still erupting in that area, blamed mainly on Tamil Tiger rebels refusing to accept a truce negotiated by their leaders. Each month was bringing more violence, adding to the more than 60,000 slaughtered in the 25-year civil war.

Pat Stanton reluctantly stifled her anxieties and produced the hidden passport after Ed’s sons, real estate agent Glen and builder Allan, agreed to accompany him on the nine-day trip.

“The 14-hour return journey in a van from Kandy to the villages, along the worst roads I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world, was arduous,” conceded Ed Stanton.
They also knew the dangers. For instance, the day before they returned home newspapers in New Zealand were describing how truce observers had been attacked in the area. A spokesman for the international monitoring team said: “It is the killings in the east that is posing the greatest problem for us now.”
One of Ed’s first major contributions was a nine-metre fishing boat which is now helping villagers regain their independence by catching cray for nearby markets.
It bears the legend: “Facilititated by Mr. Edwin Stanton of New Zealand through the Rotary Club of Orewa.”

Ed Stanton’s wish to be personally involved was graphically fulfilled when he met nearly 50 of the orphans benefiting from his generosity. He handed each 1,000 Sri Lankan rupees, worth nearly $14, as the first of 36 monthly gifts to help cover their education and living expenses.
More of his money has gone into
re-building houses.