Our Story
The Story of Old Tibet
In November 1977, Narayan Shrestha arrived in Boulder, Colorado with only 300 Dollars in his pocket, didn't speak much English, and only knew few people. In the middle of November of that year, he decided to go to Dallas. With much struggle, he managed to get his education, a bachelor’s degree in business finance at University of Texas. He then moved to Boulder in 1985. With a dream to be a successful businessman, he opened store, Old Tibet on Walnut Street. Those days Walnut Street was not that popular for shoppers. Six months later, in 1986, they moved to its current location 948 Pearl Street, Boulder.
He met his wife Sreejana Shrestha in Kathmandu, Nepal during his first trekking trip with visitors from Boulder to his hometown, Khandbari, a mountain village in eastern Nepal. Narayan and Sreejana got married on November 16, 1986. The very next day of Sreejana's arrival to Boulder, he gave her the key to the store, and here she still currently runs the shop. Meanwhile, Narayan is expanding the businesses in Colorado and Nepal. Old Tibet was the Narayan's first business, but soon after opening the shop, he created a nonprofit organization, "Helping Hands" to bring help to his home town in Nepal.
After a couple years of the organization's establishment, he managed to open clinics, hospitals, schools, and a liberal art/science college as well as a Nursing College in many parts of Nepal. He also expanded clinical and educational programs to Tibet, Bhutan, India, Vietnam, Namibia, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Over the years, his philanthropic work has provided more than 2 million people with free medical help and care. Currently, he has hospitals in Kathmandu as well as a few other villages in Nepal, and a large high school. He unfortunately had to stop providing services to the other countries, and now only mainly focuses on Nepal.
Old Tibet's success helped to open 11 Nepalese authentic restaurants in Colorado. They opened five stores, a travel agency, a rafting company, a mountain bike company, five gas stations, High Altitude enterprises, and an exchange program between US universities and SANN institute a liberal arts college in Nepal.
While Narayan kept busy traveling and taking care of their businesses at the same time, he wanted to help the people of Nepal more. Sreejana was dedicating her time to Old Tibet, taking care of all of the responsibilities of running the shop, and was also raising children at the same time. Sreejana and Narayan’s caring, loving, and understanding partnership has helped them to be successful. The couple claims that they may not be rich, but they are the happiest and most satisfied couple. Because of their continued effort to help others, millions of people have received help. Now, Old Tibet is the only profit-making business they have, and they make sure that most of the proceeds go to support their infrastructures in Nepal.
They have a scholarship foundation named after Sreejana, the “Sreejana Scholarship foundation." Those of you who want to donate to this project to honor our efforts and to help millions out there, please go to our nonprofit organization website, www.helpinghandsusa.org, and mention the Sreejana scholarship foundation. This money goes towards funding student's education at their school in Nepal, “Surya Boarding Secondary school." It only costs $550 for one student's whole year tuition, books, uniform, food, and entertainment. Any amount donated helps and is greatly appreciated. Thank you