You and Kate are Family…

The inscription, read at a festival celebration by Concord Mayor Byron Champlin, and presented by Suraj Budathoki and Dhan Timsina on October 27, says:

Thank you, Doug Hall!  The Bhutanese Community of New Hampshire honors you for standing with us and making possible our success in America.  

Sixty-eight years ago, Doug went to Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer and learned Nepali.  He has been volunteering ever since.  He met us when we arrived in New Hampshire as refugees.  Doug welcomed us, published a Nepali-English dictionary for us, and in 2009, became an incorporator of our nonprofit self-help association, the Bhutanese Community of  New Hampshire. When that organization broadened its mission in 2017 and became Building Community in New Hampshire, Doug joined the board, saved the organization from near collapse in 2018, and led it to new levels of service to refugees from Bhutan, Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.  

Doug retired from the BCNH board in December 2022 but has continued to be one of the most important and generous people in the Bhutanese Community, not just in New Hampshire but wherever we have made our new lives.  You and Kate are family and will be revered by generations of Bhutanese Americans.