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Promoting Education, Art, and Community Harvest |
PEACH
FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER September
2017 , issue No. 47 Translated
By Peggy Liou |
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Dear Friends,
We admitted 1200 new students
this year. With your help, we have already found sponsors for 700 of these
students. We are working hard to find sponsors for the remaining 500 students.
Please help us to spread the word 
among your friends and
family. Your continuing support is greatly appreciated.
2017 Summer Camps - From July 14 to
August 13, 2017, we successfully completed three sessions of summer camps. A
total of 104 volunteer teachers and 1152 students participated in these camps
in YuanYang High School at HongHe Region, in YuLong High School at Lijiang
City, and in YinWang High School at HuiZe County.
This year was also the first time
we conducted a summer camp in HuiZe County. HuiZe is located at the
northeastern side of Yunnan Province, where most residents are Han people and
only small amount of Hui, Miao and LiSu minority people live there. HuiZe
schools and students are famous for their “Study Hard, Study Hard, and
Study Hard” attitude. They are very proud of their achievements in the Annual
College Entrance Exam, where many students get accepted into top tier colleges
in China.
The students in HuiZe usually
only have Sunday afternoons off, and they only get one-week summer and winter
breaks. We noticed that most of the students in HuiZe are very devoted to their
studies. With the tremendous pressure to do well in the College Entrance Exam,
these young students rarely have opportunities to discover other interests, or
simply to relax a little. They appeared to have lost their innocence and had no
people skills. During the summer camp, the students attended classes like
English, Chinese, Happy Life, EQ, Meditation, Music, Health & Sex
Education, and they also watched movies and had a birthday party. We would like
to share some of their words:
“My
English teacher helped correct my pronunciation, and the new teaching method
had inspired my interests in learning.”
“I
realized the importance of speaking Mandarin, and I like learning it even
better now.”
“Watched
several great movies; they were very touching. They helped me relax and made me
very happy.”
“Happy
Life and EQ classes helped resolve many of the things that have troubled me.”
“Meditation
helped me be more at peace. I sleep better and have more energy. I will
practice meditation when I face the pressure in school.”
“I feel
love and warmth from others at the birthday party.”
“Music
class allowed me to truly open myself.”
“Sex
education class helped me understand what sex is about, and how I should handle
relationships with the opposite sex.”
“Health
education class taught me how to prevent diseases.”
These words are simple, but they
truly reflect the success of the summer camp. It is your love and hard work
that helps lift the students’ spirits. A heartfelt thank you to our volunteer
teachers.
2018 Summer Camps - We just completed
this year’s summer camps, and we are planning for our next year’s summer camps
already. We will have three sessions of camps in 2018 due to the impressive
number of students. If 
you are interested to
attend, please see our schedule below and register ASAP, as we only have a few
volunteer teachers’ slots available for the second session in YuanYang, while
the first and third sessions are already full.
Session A:
7/19/2018-7/27/2018 at Yunnan Province, LiJiang City,
YuLong High School.
Session B:
7/28/2018-8/7/2018 at Yunnan Province, QuJing City,
YinWang High School.
Session C:
8/7/2018-8/17/2018 at Yunnan Province, HongHe Region,
YuanYang High School.
.
Great News – This fall, 491 PEACH
high school students will move on to college, and 1194 middle school students
will move on to high school. My dear friends, this is your accomplishment.
Thank you. You will receive individual information about the student you
sponsored. Please share the good news with your friends and family.
PEACH Alumni Match Website –
Since 2002, PEACH Foundation had helped more than 9000 students continue their
studies. More than 2000 of them have already completed their education, and are
working and starting their own families. Many of them also have children of
their own now. This newer generation is better off in that they do not have to
face the extreme poverty like their parents (our PEACH kids) did. This fact
really makes us extremely happy, seeing the fruits of our labors and changing
the future of these new families.
Based on our unscientific survey,
there are about 40-50 married couples where both husband and wife are PEACH
graduates. In our Kunming office, among the nine employees, eight are PEACH
graduates. In the past few years, our office has been experiencing many good
news: four employees bought houses in Kunming, got married and have children.
Two of the married employees’ spouses are also PEACH graduates.
In that spirit, we are planning
to create a PEACH Alumni Match Website to help connect PEACH graduates and help
them to find love. The site would be an ideal place to meet other PEACH
graduates with similar backgrounds, to get to know each other, and hopefully to
fall in love.
Amazon Partnership When you shop at Amazon (smile.amazon.com), Amazon donates 0.5% of the eligible purchase amount to PEACH Foundation. Do indulge yourself with some binge shopping on Amazon. Have a shopping spree and enjoy your good deeds. Thank you for your support.
Below, we have attached two PEACH student’s
biographies. Please share them with your family and friends.
Best Regards,
Ruth Jeng
President
PEACH Foundation
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I would like to donate ______to the
Laurice children medical funds (at an average of US$20 per child.)
I would like to send _____children to attend Summer & Winter Camps (at US$125 each for one week, including a bedding set of $40)
I would like to donate ______ to scarf and mitten funds (at US$5 per child.)
I would like to donate ______to thermal-pajama funds (at US$5 per child.)
I would like to donate ______ to the library funds (at US$20 per library)
I would like to donate ______to the Junhui writing funds (amount as you wish.)
I would like to donate ______ to the foundation administration funds
I would like to donate ______to the mini-loan for middle and high school students’ living expenses (amount as you wish.)
I would like to donate ______to the college loan funds (amount as you wish.)
I would like to donate ______ (laptop computer/ digital camera/ cell phone)
I would like to increase my sponsorship to ___ high school students and ___ middle school students; the yearly costs are US$300 for a high school student, US$150 for a middle school student.
Please make check payable to PEACH FOUNDATION.
Donors in Taiwan please change the amount to New Taiwan Dollars, payable to PEACH FOUNDATION.
Account No.: 50011068 and it is tax
deductible.
Address: 1098 Marlin Avenue, Foster City, CA
94404, U.S.A.
Phone:
650-525-1188 Fax:
650-525-9688
Email:
staff@PeachFoundationUSA.org
Website: www.PeachFoundationUSA.org
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16554 Yu
XX, 8th Grade, Female
Translated
by Macy Huang
I
was born in a very poor family. I’m an interesting and funny girl with pure
black hair, short in size, and loves reading and playing sports.
I
didn’t have a mom since I was young. However, I do have a determined dad. A few
years ago, dad went out to work, and left my brother, my mother, and I home. We
didn’t see him in a few months. However, my mom fell in love with another guy
within these few months. A few weeks later, my dad returned. He was very sad
when he knew about this, yet he only said, “Live on.” We didn’t know that my
mother eloped with that guy when my dad went to the markets. My dad became very
angry. He looked everywhere for mom and couldn’t call her. At last, the only
people left in our home are my dad, my brother, and I. My dad’s health
deteriorated after he caught a huge flu, which left his right leg crippled.
My
dream is to become a surgeon, and help relieve pain for the poor people. I hope
that people every status and every age can live happily together, not having to
worry about lacking money or having an imperfect family. This dream occurred
the day my mother eloped. I thought how unfair the world was. I thought that I
suffered the most pain because I never remembered my mom’s face and never knew
where she was. I hope that I can see her one-day and finally reunite as a
family. The only memory I have with her now is of her holding me; however, I
seem to have forgotten what she looked like.
16557
Zhang XX, 8th Grade, Male
Translated
by Jennifer Lu
When I was 5 years old, my dad went to
the other town to work and passed away in an accident. My mom were forced to marry again and left
home since then.
I
travel back to my grandparents’ home every two weeks and it takes 30 mins bus
ride and 3 hours walking. I try my
best to help my grandparents and go out to find food for our pigs every
morning, after coming back, I will make lunch. Then, I will herd the goats every
afternoon and won’t be back till very late. Sometimes, I will need to make dinner if
my grandparents are busy. After
washing dishes, it’s already very late at night.
We
have very limited income at home, so I always go back to home during
summer/winter holidays instead of staying at school. I will try my best to collect
traditional medicines and mushrooms when I farm the goats. I try my best to find the precious
medicines like cordyceps or umbellatus to supplement our income, but it’s
always very difficult to find them.
I have been keeping up doing as much as I can because I want to study
and I want to help.
I
am very thankful for Peach foundation to help me to continue to finish my high
school and even college. Thank you!