Promoting Education, Art, and Community Harvest
PEACH FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER
April 2019, issue No. 52
Translated By George Wang
Dear Partners,
We admitted 1,665 new students this year.
We urge you, your family members, and friends to help sponsor these students.
With your perennial supports, these kids will have a fighting chance in
education.
Winter
Camp: In February (2/12-2/21), PEACH
held its annual winter camp at the campus of the First High School in Honghe county. There were 278 new
students who attended the camp, and 48 PEACH college students worked as
volunteer teachers. PEACH provided physical exams, eyeglasses, blankets,
jackets, gloves, socks, and scarves to keep them warm, and dictionaries, lamps
and school bags to facilitate their study.
Our
young students are all from disadvantaged families. They are shy and have very
low self-esteem. To foster their self-confidence, we paired each class with two
college students who lived and stayed with them full time. These college students had
similar struggles during their own growth. Such experience set the examples for
the young kids to emulate and aspire to in plotting their own growth.
In
just a few days, the students were transformed. In front of an audience of over
three hundred people, they sang, danced, recited poems, and performed dramas.
In PEACH camp, they learned to appreciate each other and enjoyed the pleasure
of learning.
The
college students took over the stage and acted as teachers, sharing their own
stories and experience with their younger brethren. They felt that they were
re-living their own old days: experiencing the same transformation from a shy,
timid kid to a confident performer.
Many could not believe that such a
transformation to a child is possible within a short seven days. Yet, the ten
thousand plus students are proof that it could be done. It was love that
enabled the strength and courage to transform; it was love that drew out the
inner potential of everyone.
Our gratitude to Julia Hsiao for
donating half of the theater proceeds from “Sun Bin and Pang
Juan”, a Chinese historic play held on
March 17 at Santa Clara, California.
2019 Summer Camp Schedules are as follows. All volunteer teachers’ positions are already
full.
Session A: 7/17 to
7/27/2019 at Yuanyang, Yunnan Province. Full
Session B: 7/27 to
8/6/2019 at Huize, Yunnan Province. Full
Session C: 8/7 to 8/15/2019 at Yulong,
Lijiang, Yunnan Province. Full
2019 Volunteer Exploration Trip-The volunteer group is now opened for registration. It is scheduled for
Oct 19th to 26th, 2019 at the Honghe County and Yuanyang County, Honghe
Prefecture, Yunnan Province. Both counties are famous for the rice terrace
scenery.
We are recruiting volunteer
English translators to work on student biographies. If you are interested,
please contact us via email.
Our gratitude to Angela Chin, a volunteer, who, on
the occasion of her birthday, raised $488 USD on Facebook for PEACH. She shared
her story with us in the attached article of “One Dollar”. Please feel welcome
to do the same.
Also attached is a biography from a student and a copy of the PEACH
magazine. The PEACH magazine is a forum where the students delineate their
heart-wrenching stories. Please share it with your friends and family.
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
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.
Donors in Taiwan
please change the amount to New Taiwan Dollars, payable to PEACH FOUNDATION.
Account No.:
50011068 and it is tax deductible.
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.
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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One
Dollar
By Angela Chin
When you get to my age you’d probably agree that
birthdays are really just another ordinary day. This year, a few weeks before
my birthday, I got a notification from Facebook that they would donate $1 to a
charitable organization of my choice. I was happy to take a dollar from the
tech giant, so I picked the PEACH Foundation. Little did I know
that it would turn into a fundraiser on my FB timeline! My first reaction
was to cancel the post. But then I thought, even if I don’t get any donations,
I still want FB’s $1! So I moved forward with it. What happened next
was beyond surprise. The fundraiser exceeded the default goal of $200 within
minutes. By the time of my birthday I had raised $488 for PEACH.
$488
will put one kid through high school, one through junior high and then
some. I am thrilled for the PEACH kids. I am also touched by my
friends and family who jumped in to donate. It showed me their support and
encouragement for my work with PEACH. I want to share this with you
all to show that you can do it too! If you have a Facebook account you
may receive this message from FB a few weeks before your birthday. Accept
the dollar from FB and watch your friends and family do the rest!
18359 Li XX, Grade 9, Female
Translated by Neil Sun
My
mother is a Burmese and had an unhappy marriage. Father was out there wandering
around all year long. When my mother was pregnant with me, she had to chop
woods in the mountain. Father never came back when I was born. Father finally
returned home when I was two, but his feet were paralyzed. When I was five
years old, I needed to go to school. Mother 
went collecting plastic bottles door-to-door from
morning till night and sold them to pay for my schooling. I would also take a
bag to collect plastic bottle from the school trash pit. The classmates threw
stones at me and told me that I was a dirty child. And I cried. When I came
home and saw my father sitting in a chair, I put down my schoolbag, washed his
feet and help him to eat.
One
day, I was washing my dad's dirty clothes by the river, and several children
pushed me into the water unexpectedly. They said that I was a poor child. This
time I did not cry because I am used to it. One midnight, my father suddenly
got ill and had to go to the hospital. I went to the hospital to look after
him.
During
the day and on weekends, I picked tea leaves to make some money. One day when I
was working, I was bitten by a big dog. After school, I often walked a long
distance with mother to sell empty wine bottles.
At the
age of three, my mother gave birth to a baby girl. The family has absolutely no
money. Mother had to leave home and worked in different places. She only
returned during Chinese New Year.
At the
age of nine, Grandpa passed away. I lived with my grandmother. I can only eat
things that my classmates dropped on the ground.
At the
age of ten, my father died. Mother took my eight-year-old sister and me to
China. She met and married my current father. Mother gave birth to another
lovely baby girl. My dad went to work, but he couldn’t get paid. We had eaten
all the stored rice and had to borrow money from my uncle. The kitchen in the
house is cracked but there is no money to build a house. Both of my
grandparents were disabled. My younger sister is going to school next year. The
family cannot afford it. I may have to drop out of school.