Dear All

Peradeniya Alumni Reunion - Peradeniya University Art Gallery and Museum Building Project April 29, 2006

This letter is written to invite you to an informal reunion of Peradeniya alumni in the Greater Washington area. Those of us who thought of organizing this believe that it would be fun to meet old friends from Peradeniya, some of whom we may not have seen or heard from for many years.

But in coming together we also want to help Peradeniya for a worthy cause. You may be aware of the Art Gallery & Museum project that was launched in August 2004 at Peradeniya. (http://www.pdn.ac.lk/news/artgallery.html). The Art Gallery is to house the large and invaluable collection of works of art that Peradeniya owns. That collection was further augmented by the large number of George Keyts that the former Peradeniya Librarian Mr. Ian Gunatilaka donated to the University just before his death a few years ago. The museum will become the depository for artifacts of historical importance to Peradeniya and Sri Lanka.s higher education.

Architect Ashley de Vos is giving his services free to Peradeniya to design the building. A committee chaired by Emeritus Professor Ashley Halpe is overlooking the project.

In 2004 the estimated cost was Rs30m. Given inflation in the last eighteen months today the price tag is likely to be significantly higher. Even so converted to dollars it is not a large amount for such a project. But as you know Peradeniya has little resources of its own to spare for such a project no matter how deserving it may be. Both the Vice Chancellor Kapila Gunasekera as well as Professor Ashley Halpe have requested some of us to help them raise funds for the project. So we want to make our reunion a small fundraiser for this project.

We cordially invite you to join us on Saturday April 29 evening around 7.00 p.m. at the residence of Mr. Saman Udagedara, Minister (Commercial) SL Embassy in Washington, DC. Saman and wife Kusum have kindly agreed to host us to dinner. They live in Bethesda (5105 Wilson Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814. Tel 240-497-1266). Directions attached.

We suggest a contribution of $100 per alumnus for the building fund with anybody who wants to contribute more being welcome to do so. Our target is $10,000 (Rs 1.0m). It will be nice if we could exceed that. You can help us achieve the target by participating and by inviting other Peradeniya alumni that you know who may be able to attend. If you send an invitation to anybody please make sure to inform Saman. If not we are in danger of running out of food!

Please write your cheque in favour of the University Development Fund- University of Peradeniya AC/No 00571620000552, Peoples Bank, Peradeniya. The cheques will be forwarded to the Vice Chancellor with a request that each contribution be acknowledged individually.

We look forward to seeing you on Saturday April 22.

With best regards.

Sincerely,

Sam Samarasinghe

Arts 1963-67

301-962-7611