Staying In the Picture

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When the tsunami hit the coast of Southeast Asia in late 2004, Hunter and Andrea Herz Payne fretted about an American family they had befriended in Los Angeles and visited on Phuket, an island popular with tourists off Thailand. For four days, the parents and their young children couldn’t be found until an e-mail came saying they were OK.

It was four days that changed the Paynes’ lives, setting the stage for what now commands their focus: Aid Still Required, a non-profit run out of their Santa Monica home. It is aimed at keeping help flowing after the cameras have gone and the aid dwindles.

“Our mission is forgotten people and issues,” said Hunter Payne, 61, a singer-songwriter who once worked as a stockbroker for Bear Stearns. “You can call us second responders. One of our mottos is ‘Just because it’s left the headlines doesn’t mean it’s left the planet.’”

Among other projects, they are raising money for tsunami survivors in Southeast Asia; a Darfur reforestation initiative that seeks to reclaim abandoned Sudanese villages from encroaching desert; and a plan to build floating townhouses for people made homeless by Hurricane Katrina.

All told, the couple figures their projects will cost about $2.4 million, with $100,000 coming from their savings. To raise the rest, they are seeking contributions, organizing fundraisers and, this spring, releasing a CD featuring such famous contributing artists as Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and James Taylor.

What’s next for them?

“Haiti and Chile will be on our radar in six to 12 months when they’ve fallen out of the media spotlight,” Andrea Herz Payne said.

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