MATTURA SAM: My mother was about to go to school for the first time, I believe, when the regime stepped in and the violence started.

AMANDA PRAK SAM: We start hearing a lot of loud sound like thunders.

We didn't know it was bombing.

So the civil war was going on.

The Khmer Rouge regime, they took over Cambodia.

My father was a school teacher, and they start killing the intellectual.

We were forced to leave our home all at once, giving us no time to even pack our belonging.

We change our identity completely.

We had to destroy all document, birth certificate, photos.

We travel on foot for days.

We ran out of food of course, and there's a lot of people die from either poisonous snake or eating poisonous mushrooms.

We eat all kind, anything that we can possibly find.

So we fled Cambodia through the Thai jungle.

We roamed the jungle for couple of months before refugee camp opened up in Thailand.

We moved from camp to camp for, I think, like three, four different camp before we come to America in 1981.

We came straight to Richmond and America is heaven, it's just heaven for us.

MATTURA SAM: I remember as a kid, my mother was always interested in going back to Cambodia and just determining that she wanted to start helping the place she grew up.

AMANDA PRAK SAM: People were so desperate.

So that's when I told myself, I got to do something.

MATTURA SAM: At first, it started out with feeding the people that needed it the most with literally bags of rice and it's been wonderful seeing that then sprout into a mission for education.

AMANDA PRAK SAM: My father sat down with me one time, say, "Darling, you're doing a wonderful job, but if you keep just giving fish to them, how they going to know how to learn to fish?

But if you give them education, it lasts a lifetime."

I'm pleased to build a school to where my father first taught before the war.

Leave a little legacy for him.

Good AMANDA PRAK SAM: We're just trying to find a solution, how we going to make this water look clear usable.

Even though it's dirty, it's better than not washing their hand after you're playing with the dirt.

(people chatter) (water splashes) We bought some shoes, uniform for those kids and it's 40% of them, they don't have the parent living with them.

Are you guys ready for soccer?

>>Yes, yes.

AMANDA PRAK SAM: Yes?

Raise your hand if you're ready.

Crowd Member: Woohoo!

AMANDA PRAK SAM: The biggest reward is to see some of these children break out that cycle of poverty.

I want to make a change as many life I can.

I was just there this past summer.

Now, we've just finished the second school building.

So right now, we have not just the nice school, but we have clean drinking water, indoor bathroom for the students.

The clean waters not just for the kid, the students, but the the villagers also.

MATTURA SAM: If anyone has an opportunity to help someone out, even if it seems like something small, even if it seems like it could be inconvenient to you, it doesn't even have to be anything as extreme as what my mother went through, but just to help them out and encourage them to go on their right path because a lot of the times, it is just a community supporting each other that will change the world.

AMANDA PRAK SAM: And what's your name?

(children say their names together)