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

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.