Christmas

Thank You and Happy Holidays from Hope School Foundation

All of us at Hope School Foundation join together to say thank you and wish you a Happy Holiday Season and Prosperous New Year!

Poverty can bring tremendous distress; economic hardship and material scarcity can often load such a heavy burden on parents that they can hardly keep their heads above water. As a result, innocent children are affected, and deprived of the opportunity to pursue a full education.  They begin their life at a huge disadvantage. This perpetuates a vicious cycle and imposes a rough destiny on those youngsters and their children.  In certain instances, they become the target for others to exploit and bully.

To change the situation, it is necessary to begin with education.  To provide children of poverty with a basic education is to grant them the opportunity to change their future.   When education becomes universally available, the indigent environment has a chance to improve.

When I wrote the article "This Is The Time," through a self-evaluating and self-awakening process, I realized that it is imperative for the Chinese children deprived of educational opportunities to receive assistance.  Led by true compassion and enthusiasm, I began to single-handedly take on the challenging task of building elementary schools in barren mountain areas.   Nevertheless, one person's effort is limited and often the ability fell short of my wishes.  I urgently need to seek assistance among friends like you.  Only if we unite in a concerted effort and work in full cooperation will we achieve the goal of universal access to education.  This was my motivation for founding the "Hope School Foundation."

Thanks to the selfless devotion of many volunteers and their enthusiastic participation, the "Hope School Foundation" was established.  It has a simple mission: to provide educational opportunities to children of needy families or those who have been deprived of education in the remote rural areas in China. The foundation will do its best to provide funds to build or refurbish school buildings in remote areas or to award scholarships to aid those helpless children in fulfilling their educational pursuits.

As the Foundation is in its pioneering stage, we walk every step with great difficulty, and move forward with intense vigilance.   Not only do we constantly strive to build our knowledge and skills, we also humbly seek advice from forerunners who have more experience in this field.  Among the advice we received, the most valuable one came from a charitable organization for school assistance in New York.  Its Director generously shared his valuable ideas and suggestions with us.  This organization focuses on rendering assistance to the Southwest area in China, around the provinces of Szechwan and Kweichow.  They are not in the position to expand their services to other areas in the near future.   This organization earnestly urged us to join them to make the best use of our combined time and energy, and to receive the benefit of getting twice the result with half the effort.  However, China is vastly spread-out geographically with an enormous population.  There are countless villages, towns, and cities in the Northeastern areas equally in need of assistance.  Somehow, the thought "the joy of harvest comes with intensive sweats in planting the seeds" captured me, so I decided to begin this mission from scratch.  This Foundation selected the central area of He-Nan to commence our work.  We hope to provide considerable assistance to those poor children.

Another good example worth following is an educational scholarship foundation in Northern California.  They focus on assisting students of needy families who are in good academic standing.  I recognize their good intentions, however, since academic achievement is among their criteria, many needy youths will doubtlessly be excluded.   I do not believe students of weak academic performance are necessarily unintelligent or have not worked hard enough.  Oftentimes, the learning environment posts such an obstacle that it hinders learning capacity.  Proper education should emphasize teaching all levels with no class distinctions.  Regardless of a pupil's talent and intelligence, the principle of equal opportunity in receiving education should apply to everyone.  This belief led our Foundation to define our primary mission: the establishment of schools.  It is our hope that we will be able to inspire others to expand our potential to maximize the benefits.  Should our resources permit, we would also like to provide finance assistance to the students of needy families so they will not be compelled to discontinue their education due to financial difficulty.

The beginning stage is often the most challenging. Under conditions of limited manpower and resources, this Foundation, captured by a spirit of servicing others and heart-felt empathy, blazes a new trail.  Like the pioneers, driving a cart in ragged clothes and enduring great hardship, we expend tremendous efforts in opening up a virgin land.  We sincerely invite all who share with our compassion to join our team. A Chinese proverb says: "Many grains of sand piled up will make a pagoda."  Let our loving and caring spirits congregate to form the power of love like a roaring river to nurture the educationally barren land.  Let our loving hearts spread the seeds and help them grow into blossoms and bear fruit to yield positive results.

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