That trigues a new movement which I call "local education sponsorship". Everything is local: local people to form a local group to help some other local people. There is no government layer between the donors and reciepients. In this way, they are sure the money reach those who are supposed to receive the money.

Mr. Mei Lin and Dr. Hu Mingjie graduated from the Mathematics Department of Beijing Normal University (BNU). They came to the Unite States to continue their education and then settled down. They have stable jobs, comfortable life and happy families. But They didn't forget their motherland where many children still need help to finish their education. So, they set up a Xie Yu Education Foundation (www.xieyufoundation.org/) with their fellow friends also graduated from BNU. Because they graudated from BNU, they put their effort to help their fellow students at the BNU. Its name came from a beloved professor Xie Yu, a national May Day medal receipient who passed away of cancer. Currently, they have established "Student Financial Assistantship" and "Educational Society Exploration Grant". The recipients of the Student Financial Assistantships are BNU students with financial difficulties; The Educational Society Exploration Grants is awarded to BNU students or faculty to enable them to participate in educational exploration activities. (boxun.com)

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During the summer 2004, a group of six students arrived at the second middle school of a remote undeveloped area of Xin Wen county of Sichuan province. There they offered a sequence of seminars: math and art, math puzzles, probability and statistics, introducation to calculus, mathematical modeling in high school, introducation of solid geometry. The seminars were well received and as a results, more were requested. Even teachers felt beneficial. Meanwhile, they also helped them learn the basics of computers and established a computer study group. The students created their first web pages. In addition, they gave lectures on "ideal and maturity", "interesting psycology" and organized an English concor activity, as well as an high school education condition and predication activity. Within 10 days, six college students were able to do so much. It is all because of the generous donation from people like Mei Lin and Hu Mingjie. While I was reading their summary report, I kept thinking that it would be great if there were more people like Mei Lin and Hu Mingjie.

Now, Mei Lin and Hu Mingjie are considering to add a new item: Help those who are admitted to BNU but can not afford the expenses for school. Although their foundation does not have a lot of money, they are determined to carry this effort on. "More and more people will learn what we are doing and finally support us."

Professor Yang Tonghai at UW Madison had an interesting upward career path: He was borned in a farmer family in Jingguo city, Anhui province. After gradated from a college, he worked at a local middle school. He then continued for a master degree at Anhui Normal University and accepted a position at the Universtiy of Science and Technology of China. Later, he went to the United States and finished his Ph.D. degree from the University of Maryland. Before he ended up to the current tenure position at the UW Madison, he held postdoctor or professor positions at top schools such as Harvard, Michigan, Princeton, the University of New York at Stony Brook, etc. He did not forget the poor children at his hometown. He recently established a Hometown Education Foundation (HEF) (www.math.wisc.edu/~thyang/charity). Its mission reads "The sole mission of HEF is to raise the necessary fund to support the poorest children of Ningguo County (of Anhui Province) to receive an elementary through high school education." Within a year, he has already raised more than 5,000 dollars in the United States. Its partner Ning Guo Sino-US Educational Promotion Association also raised 60,000 yuans (or 7,300 dolars). In the summer of 2004, he visited his parent there, but he didn't stay home much. Instead, he visited the needy students at several villages. His partners visited all high schools, all middle schools and all central elementary schools and all nearby villages. For those remote areas, they called reliable friends and asked them to visit needy students. Now, Tonghai is planning another trip to Ning Guo in the winter.

Frankly speaking, Tonghai's foundation in the U.S. is a one person organization. He set up the foundation, created a website, filtered the names of needy students and solicited donations. Among his donors, you find his former schoolmates, his thesis advisor, his neighbors, his colleagues, his friends, freinds of friends and many others who don't know him. They are from China, Taiwan, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Isreal, India, Denmark, Netherlands, Mexico, etc. Melania Adem and her husband Professor Aljendro Adem at Madison sponsored three elementary students, and gave one of them extra $50 for living support since that kid and his grandpa have no income at all. Jie Lan and Chang Liu are themselves graduate students in Madison. They found the charity on web and decided to sponsor a middle school student. This year, Tonghai's foundation sponsored 220 needy students. He hopes that he can achieve at least this figure in 2005. At his website, there is a list of 134 students and their family conditions. Most of them are still waiting for helps. They only represent about a quarter of all poor students identified. To help them, he will continue calling his friends and sending them emails.On the front page of his personal website, you don't see his academic achievements, but a picture of a little girl who is dreaming to go back to school. Many people come to his website in order to download his papers but were deeply moved by his charity activities and hence made donations.

I asked them for motivation and both answered me clearly: They want to make sure the money goes to those who are in need. They have personal local connections over there in China. The amount of money is little. Everything is crystal clear. "We know how important to earn trust. We will make every effort to earn trust." Tonghai told me.

At this point, I recalled a story, the last story that touched Professor XIe Yu's heart:

In a morninrg after a storm, a man walked on a beach. While he was walking, he noticed that there were many sand water pots in which many little fishes were there. They were prevented to go back to the ocean even though the ocean was only a few feet away. Prety soon, they would die when the sand dried up. The man continued walking until he saw a boy walking slowly and bended to pick up fishes and throwed them back to the ocean. The man stopped and stared at the boy while he was saving lifes.

Finally, the man couldn't stop but saying "Boy, there are hundreds or thousands of fishes. You can't save them all."

"I know." the boy answered without looking at him, but conitnued his work.

"Oh, then why do you still throw them back to the ocean? Who cares?"

"This fish cares!" the boy replied while throwing it back, "This one too, and this one too, this one, and this one, ..."

In China, there are many drop-off children. Like those fishes, we can help some of them even though we can not help all of them. He cares, she cares, and they care. Because of our effort, their lifes are different now: they can go back to school, they will have a better life in the future. We can make this to happen. Yes, the future of China lies on the next generations. If you like to see a good future in China, please join the effort of Mei Lin, Hu Mingjie and Yang Tonghai.

Nov. 16, 2004

Published in Chinese at "Hua Xia Wen Zhai" Issue 712. _(²©Ñ¶×ÔÓÉ·¢¸åÇø·¢¸å) (boxun.com)