Jamie Amelio, founder of Caring for Cambodia Visits Lehigh

Jamie Amelio presented to a full house at the Linderman Rotunda on October 18 to share her new book "Graced with Orange." 

Jamie C. Amelio is the founder and CEO of Caring for Cambodia, a non-profit organization directed toward educating children and training teachers in Siem Reap, Cambodia. While vacationing in Cambodia in 2003, Texas-native Jamie Amelio expected to be wowed by the temples of Angkor Wat. Instead, it was a 9-year-old girl panhandling for a few dollars who would change her life.

A few weeks later, Jamie established Caring for Cambodia, which now supports over 6,400 students in 21 schools in Siem Reap. It is run mostly by volunteers. With 4,000 supporters worldwide, CFC guarantees well-equipped classrooms, locally trained teachers, a meal for every student, uniforms, basic health and hygiene care — and often a bicycle.

Jamie is no stranger to helping children. When living in Los Angeles, she served on the Board of Directors of Vistas for Children, and founded Junior Vistas for Children. In both 2005 and 2010 Jamie was awarded the prestigious Golden Hand Service Award by the Cambodian government, and named as a 2010 Classic Woman of the Year by Traditional Home Magazine. She is also the author of Stumpy the Crocodile, a children’s book about helping neighbors in need. After living in Asia for ten years, Jamie, her husband Bill, and their six children now live in Austin, Texas.

Graced with Orange is, at heart, a book about human potential. Graced with Orange shows its readers how to build, grow and heal a family with its thousands of members coalescing around helping perfect strangers. If CFC is the answer to ‘how can we rekindle the light of Cambodia’s children one great school at a time?’, then Graced with Orange is the vehicle driving awareness of the burgeoning hope Caring for Cambodia gives “...a tiny country where the United States dropped more bombs than fell during all of World War II, in a nation in which a third of the population was massacred by its own despots, where teachers were executed and all hope had been exterminated (p. 158-159).” Grow orange and learn of the results yourself.

"Graced with Orange is a warm, candid memoir that reveals Jamie Amelio s visionary dedication to education and her journey to transform the lives of Cambodian children. Through Caring for Cambodia, Jamie has inspired legions of volunteers to believe in the power of education, and this engaging narrative draws us in to share that passion. --Alice P. Gast, president of Lehigh University".