A Birthday Gift Beyond Years

One generation plants the trees under whose

shade another generation rests.

~ Chinese Proverb ~

I don’t really celebrate birthdays anymore. In fact, unless the number of years I have lived ends in a zero, I give my birthdays to my kids. They get to go to Dollar Tree and “pick out something for mom” that they wrap and play with as we grab a soft serve cone from our favorite place. Recently, I became age that could be measured in decades— the number of years ended in a zero. My husband knew to take me out for dinner, which was very nice. My parents couldn’t think of anything that would mean more to me than making a difference in the lives of children and young people that LWB serves. So they surprised me by tucking a check made out to Love Without Boundaries into a birthday card in an amount that I never would have dreamed of as a kid.

I was blown away by their generosity and ability to get this birthday gift spot on perfect! They know of my love for the children of LWB. They know that when I see any of the children served by medical, foster care, nutrition or education that I’m seeing my own children...and they wanted to be grandparents in a way to those kids in the only way that they could.


After consulting my parents, we requested that the check money be used to help partially sponsor a Mama’s Wish student, Nan. Nan is a third year university student from Qinghai studying English and Tibetan. Almost a year later, Nan’s US “auntie and uncle" (me and my husband) and "grandma and grandpa” were thrilled to receive, "ooooh," and "ahhhh" over her final grades for the year—which were ALL A's and B's. Her teachers wrote that Nan is a very diligent student and active in lots of activities. She has helped translate documents for LWB Mama’s Wish students, volunteers, and sponsors. We can’t WAIT to see this young woman graduate continue her studies next year and graduate. It will be a very happy day for all of us...and we will dream of a very beautiful tree that shades lots and lots of friends and family members that have been touched by Nan, enriched so very dearly by a college education.

LWB Volunteer

The Ripple-Effect...

The Ripple-Effect is defined as ‘a spreading series of effects or consequences caused by a single event’. We all experience the ripple-effect daily, either by causing a ripple or being affected by one, we just aren’t always lucky enough to recognize what is happening. My ripple-effect started with spring cleaning. That annual ritual of cleaning out the old to make room for the new. I find spring cleaning refreshing and revitalizing. But this year brought a new twist to my ritual. As I was going through the kids’ clothing I was making my usual ‘donate’ and ‘keep’ piles, but this year I was distracted. I had just received photos and information about the children in our Mama’s Wish program at Tongren Middle School. Most students from schools in Tongren County, Huangnan Prefecture, Qinghai Province are from rural villages. There are no specific financial incomes for those villages but they depend on farming and animal husbandry, which are hardly enough to keep them from starving let alone able to purchase warm clothing for their children for the harsh winter weather. At Tongren Middle school there are about 1600 students and there are not enough dormitory rooms. Generally 40 students share one room and two or three students have to share one bed. These beds are in poor condition and should not be shared. There are stories of students being injured because the beds collapsed on them.
Our Orphanage Assistance program usually takes care of a need like this by contacting the adoptive parent Yahoo group, we raise funds and purchase what is needed. Only that doesn’t work for our Mama’s Wish students, Qinghai doesn’t participate in international adoption so there isn’t a parent Yahoo group to contact, making fundraising much more difficult.

Back to my spring cleaning. As the clothes that no longer fit my children were stacking up I found myself wishing I could get them to the Mama’s Wish students—but shipping is extremely expensive and then there is the whole customs issue and duty fees. But the need is just so great.
Then it occurred to me—LWB has a wonderful group of people right in China. What if they would gather their used clothing, and that of their family and friends, colleagues and neighbors, and they sent them to our Mama’s Wish students? Well, the ripples were set in motion and where they went was simply amazing.

I emailed our China staff with my request and offered to pay the shipping costs out of our Special Projects General Fund. Here is what happened: 81 packages were received from many different places in China; 52 packages were distributed to the students in Tongren School, including students who are not in our Mama’s Wish program. The remaining 29 packages will be distributed to poor families in the area. A portion of the clothing came from the classmates of our Fujian facilitator’s son. Not only did these students donate their used clothing but they also decided they wanted to form a partnership with the Tongren school to help on a continuing basis! So, not only did the Tongren students receive help now but they will continue to receive help in the future.



Who knew spring cleaning would help someone more than half way around the world!! Now, on to replacing those beds….


Kate Finco
Special Projects Director

It Only Takes a Spark to Get a Fire Glowing

Back in my summer camp days, I used to sing a song that began, “It only takes a spark, to get a fire glowing…” Usually, it was one of the first songs sung around a campfire and the words to those lyrics never fail to remind me of those feelings of friendship and community.

I was thinking of those words after
Love Without Boundaries Education recently accepted a check for over $9,800.
It all began with a spark.

Some time ago, a young college woman worked as a nanny for a family that had adopted a daughter from China. In the course of her relationship with this family, she learned about Love Without Boundaries and the work that LWB does. The young woman went on to graduate and become involved in professional life. As part of her professional life, the woman became an advisor to college students in the US based National Association of College and University Residence Halls, NACURH, Inc.

In the Fall of 2007, NACURH was looking for a charity to focus its philanthropic efforts upon. An advisor and former nanny suggested Love Without Boundaries as a possibility. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

NACURH did indeed select LWB as its focus for charity. Member campuses around the USA were challenged to host fundraisers to benefit LWB Education – specifically to raise funds for music teachers in our Believe In Me School programs. NACURH members responded in enthusiastic and creative ways sponsoring “Battle of the Bands” contests, auctions, charity softball games and more.

The spark that began within a family to adopt from China has affected so many lives. These funds will be used for music teachers and instruments in our Believe In Me schools, and will also help to sponsor one young woman in our Mama’s Wish program to attend college. She will be majoring in Tibetan Music! Funds will also go toward education for victims of the recent earthquake in China.

Thank you. Such small words to express the gratitude we hold for all the students that will make music and learning possible for so many children and students in China that could not experience it any other way. Thank you NACURH from the bottom of our hearts for what you have made possible.

Those interested in learning more about LWB Education programs and students in immediate need of assistance can go to: http://www.lovewithoutboundaries.com/education.cfm


Linda Mitchell
Associate Director of Education

Mama's Wish Students Help Earthquake Victims

When the earthquake struck last week our Mama's Wish students wanted to do whatever they could to help, so they organized a donation drive at the TongRen School. While the loose change collected did not total a very high amount, the generosity and concern shown by these students, who have so little, is immeasurable. Today our China Associate Director of Education (who was born in Chengdu and whose family still lives there) received the following email from our students:

Dear Sister,

We saw the earthquake in Sichuan on TV. We feel very sad and we all know that you are from Sichuan. You must feel so sad. We hope you are feeling not too sad. Please take good care of yourself. Today our school has a donation event for this tragedy. All of Mama's Wish teachers and students have participated. We will gather together and pray for the dead, hope they will have peace. We will pray for the survivors and hope they will be safe.

Wish you good health.
Mama's Wish

Over and over these students have shown what loving hearts they have - from teaching rural children in their villages during winter breaks to repairing the roof of an elderly person's home to collecting donations from their own impoverished community to help earthquake victims - and we are all so proud of them. The students tell us that they learned to do good things for other people from their sponsors, who have shown them that an act of love and support is best when paid forward, not back. Our students have so little, and yet they give so much.

Angela Taylor
Associate Director of Education

Dear Dad

One of the great joys of my job at LWB is reading the letters from the students in the Mama's Wish Program to their sponsors. Below is a letter written by one of our brightest students just before Chinese New Year. You will note that she refers to her sponsor as "Dad." This is because sponsors of this program are allowed to forge personal relationships with their students through letters, and over the past couple of years many of the students have begun referring to their sponsors as "Aunt and Uncle" or "American Mom" or "Mom and Dad." I know that Lhachen's sponsors must be so proud of her, and it must make them feel good to know that their investment in her education has the effect of impacting not just her, but also the children from her village.

Fifty-six our high school students will be graduating this year, and it is our hope that each of them will be able to attend college in the fall. We can't do it without your help, though. If you would like to contribute to the Mama's Wish college fund or would like more information, please let me know. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

Angela Taylor
Associate Director of Education
Minority Schools Program
angela.taylor@lwbmail.com




Dear Dad,

Hope all is well. The Chinese New Year is just around the corner. At this special moment, I would like to wish you good health and happiness in 2008.

My college entrance exam is approaching and I will study hard to get good score. I made big improvement for my semester and I will continue to pursue a better result in my academic performance.

My family and I are very grateful for your help. I would not be in school if I did not get help from you. I cannot thank you enough for your kindness and help. I will not let you down. I believe the best presents for you is to study hard and achieve academic excellence.

As you know, my hometown is an underdeveloped area in terms of education and economy. Few people can afford to go to school to get education. We never heard of this foreign language: English. And the teacher shortage is very severe in my village. Therefore, I decided to dedicate my semester break time to teach them English voluntarily. Although my English is not perfect, I am happy to share with them what I learned in school.

Everybody has his or her dreams. Mine is to raise enough funds to open a school to help those children just like me who cannot afford to go to school and get an education. I am going to work hard to achieve my dream and be a noble person like you to reach out to people in need. I wish I could go to college and make my dream come true.

Once again, I am so thankful for your help.

Your daughter,
Lhachen

Making a difference

Last summer three 8-year-old girls wanted to make a difference in the lives of school children in China. LWB had received a donation of plush toys, and the girls had a great idea of how to turn that donation into funds for education. With the approval of their school principal, the girls set up a booth at the school’s summer jam concert and a donation jar to collect funds to help children in China. Once a donation was made, the donor was allowed to choose a plush toy as a thank you for their donation. The school community supported their fundraiser generously, and they received donations large and small. At the end of the day the girls had collected $800 for the children in the minority schools program at LWB!

Every student in the Mama’s Wish program received a Chinese-English dictionary, and one of the girls who spearheaded the fundraiser was there to personally hand out each book to the students. With funds still remaining, a laptop computer was purchased for the college students in Chengdu to share. The computer was recently delivered to the students, who wrote this letter of appreciation:

“We are very appreciate what you have done for us. We never dare to ask for a computer for ourselves to use although we were dreaming to have one.” You know we are living in a computer society and it is so useful and convenient for us to work and to study. We are a little shy to tell you that we want to buy a computer. We know you can never satisfy everything that you want to have in this world. But you purchased a computer for us and fulfilled our dream! We are so happy and moved! We signed a contract among us: We use the computer in turns. So you not only satisfied our need for material but also satisfied our need for spirit. We are really lucky to meet you! You are blessed and we are blessed as well! We are really appreciate what you have done for us! It is hard to say thank you in one sentence to express our thanks! Thank you! Thank you again! Wish you are happy!”

Even after buying all of the dictionaries and the computer, there is still a little money left over from the fundraiser. More books will be purchased with the remaining funds, and donated to the libraries of the minority schools. This time we will be buying children’s literature, and we can’t wait for the young students to have more books to read.

A huge Thank You goes out to Darian, Jamie, and Lily for all of their hard work; to their school principal for allowing them booth space at the school’s summer jam; and to the Weaver Elementary School parents for supporting the fundraiser so generously. You are helping children to read books, learn a new language, and get through college more easily with your donations!

LWB Education

The Ripple Effect

I received a lovely note from a sponsor recently thanking us for our work, comparing it to "teaching someone to fish" rather than giving someone a fish. I was reminded of the ripple effect that education can have on future generations, villages, and communities. This is why I have chosen to devote my time to promoting education for children who will remain in China throughout their lives. We currently have several college students in the Mama's Wish Minority Schools program who are studying to become teachers, with the express intent of returning to their villages and educating the youth of tomorrow. Additionally, several of our college students are in medical school studying to become doctors.

One student in particular that comes to mind is Limao, whose mother died when she was a young girl. Limao later learned that the disease which killed her mother could have been treated if they had only had access to a doctor in her remote village. Knowing that her mother’s life could have been saved, Limao's singular purpose in life has been to somehow attend medical school and then return to her village to open a women's clinic. Her goal has not wavered in all of these years, and she is one of the most determined young women I have ever met. When I visited with her during this last trip, she told me that she and a group of her friends from college spent the summer traveling from village to village, performing traditional Tibetan dancing. After the performances, they taught dancing to young women and then after each dance lesson, they discussed women's health and reproduction with the women in the villages. Limao and her friends from medical school are not even out of college yet, but they are already making a difference in the lives of others – both in their own village and in their greater community. Isn't that wonderful? As you can see, the ripple effect has already started, just two short years after this program was first brought to our attention.

THANK YOU to all of our education supporters. You aren’t just changing the life of one student. By “teaching to fish,” you are improving the quality of life for generations to come.

Angela Taylor
LWB Education

Going Green and Getting Clean

The Mama’s Wish teachers have been hard at work this summer overseeing a project to bring water to an extremely remote minority orphan school in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in western Qinghai Province. The energy efficient solar water system is capable of producing three tons of warm water per day and will benefit appx 700 students and teachers in Batang County. Two shower rooms were constructed, (one for boys and one for girls), and the rooms contain sixteen shower nozzles. The shower system will be used not only by the students in the orphan school, but also the students who are studying in nine more village schools in the surrounding area. From now on, the students will be able to have a minimum of one shower every week!

And because little clean bodies deserve to wear clean clothes, five washing machines were also donated to the school. A wonderful group of volunteers in Shanghai also donated new clothes (and toys) to the children.

The water project made big news in Batang County, and the teachers believe that illness in the school will be reduced because the children will now be able to practice better hygiene habits, such as brushing their teeth and washing their hands in the new wash basins.

Our deepest thanks go out to the generous donor family, who not only financed the entire water project, but also helped to see it through fruition.

If you’d like to know how you can help the rural minority students and orphans in the Mama’s Wish education program, please contact angela.taylor@lovewithoutboundaries.com.

A Generous Gift

The college students in our Mama’s Wish program have a new reason to celebrate, thanks to a generous grant from the Jie Jie Foundation. Recently, several new laptop computers were purchased for our university students to share. Additionally, university students received individual external hard drives.

Until now, the college students have had to walk to smoke-filled Internet bars and pay to use the computers in order to do their homework. The students are now able to share laptop computers and stay on campus to do research and write papers.

They were all so excited when presented with this unexpected surprise, and together they wrote to us expressing their gratitude:

“Last week, Mr. Jiancuo came to Xining and all of our college students who are in Xining got together and had a meeting. At the meeting, Mr. Jiancuo said, ‘The sponsors have offered you such convenient computers, so all of you must be able to know how to use the computer well. When you come back to home on the next holiday, everyone should show me what have you learned from the computer.’

“Each college is going to have one computer and we will take turns protecting the computer and checking it out to the students who need to use it. We bought a notebook to keep track of who has the computer. It’s very useful for us because we can use the computers for homework for school and make more time for study and less time at Internet bar.

“Therefore we want to say thank you very much that you offered us these wonderful computers to use. We never forget your kindness and are always holding you in our hearts. You are just like the sun and always shining to us and giving us warmth. Please give our best regards for all of your families!”

THANK YOU to the Jie Jie Foundation for making the lives of these promising college students a little bit easier.