By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Matthew and Rachel Asir were happy when they both received iPads as a present four years ago.
But then it occurred to the brother and sister, who live in Lawrence Township, that there were other children who are not as fortunate as they are.
"We were thinking about children in Trenton who couldn’t have an iPad. They don’t have the money to buy a laptop computer," said Rachel, who is a sophomore at Stuart Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Princeton.
That’s when Matthew and Rachel decided to raise money to help other children. Since their first fundraiser four years ago, they have raised about $40,000 to benefit charities as diverse as the Camden-based Urban Promise, which seeks to keep teenagers off the streets and away from gangs; the Pediatric Epilepsy Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; or HiTOPS’ adolescent pregnancy prevention education program.
On Aug. 9, the siblings are going to hold their fifth annual fundraiser — this time, to benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The event, which runs from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Asir home on Lawrenceville Road, will feature Rachel performing classical Indian dance. Matthew will play classical sitar.
Rachel, who is 14, has been studying and performing classical Indian dance for eight or nine years. Matthew, who is 16, has been studying and playing the sitar for seven years. The sitar is a plucked stringed instrument that originated in India. It was popularized in the West by Ravi Shankar in the 1950s and 1960s.
It was Rachel who suggested donating the money from this year’s event to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which helps police and families find missing children. The nonprofit group also focuses on reducing child exploitation and preventing child victimization. It has helped recover 196,000 missing children since 1984, according to its website, www.missingkids.com.
The choice of the center as a beneficiary grew out of Rachel’s awareness of the three women who were held hostage in a Cleveland, Ohio, home for 10 years. The women were freed after one of them escaped while their captor was out of the house last year.
"As a child, I heard from my parents, ‘Don’t talk to strangers.’ I knew about (the house in Ohio). I thought, ‘It could have been me.’ It affected me more, being a girl. Something needs to be done," Rachel said.
Matthew, who attends the Harrow School in England, agreed the topic of missing and exploited children is a serious one. He pointed to the girls who were kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year, and to the exploitation of young boys to serve as soldiers in the Middle East.
And while Matthew and Rachel acknowledge they cannot help those children, they believe it is possible to aid children in their own country — whether it is providing after-school activities for inner-city children, attempting to prevent teenage pregnancy or locating missing children.
"We realize how fortunate we are," Matthew said. "We want to do something for children our age in the United States. Thousands of children go missing every day in the United States. We want to give our support to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and its efforts to find them."
For more information about the event, email [email protected] or visit www.mrafoundation.org. The requested minimum donation is $100.

