Dear HELP Donors:

We hope this letter finds you enjoying the spring. Here we briefly report to you what HELP has accomplished in the first quarter of 2010. With your generous support, HELP has successfully conducted two projects in the first quarter, which are summarized in the following table:

 

 

In 2009, HELP has successfully carried out several rounds of projects to provide free medical services to people in Wolong Nature Reserve.  These activities turned out to be extremely helpful for local people in the post-earthquake period, when poor transportation and economic status prevented many from going to hospitals.

On January 31^st and February 1^st of 2010, HELP invited over 20 volunteer doctors from Chengdu, Shanghai and Macau, through our collaborators in Chengdu, to Wolong Township.  Many locals from all corners came to receive the free treatments and medicines.  These experienced doctors, along with local HELPers, worked until late in the evenings.  The Chinese New Year of Tiger was just two weeks away, and this was the best gift that HELP could give to the local people!

 

The 305 students in the Weimin Elementary School (Qiaodi County, Xichang, Liangshan Yi-Ethnic Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan) came from the surrounding 4 villages, with an altitude at around 2000 meters. Due to the extremely poor road conditions, most students live in the school. They are mostly from poor families and do not have warm clothes and shoes in the winter; some even went to school with feet exposed in the hard weather. In 2009 HELP bought winter clothes and shoes for all the students before winter arrived.

 

During that process, we also got to know that the school was always short of water supply. Due to the severe shortage of water, the students had to share the single water pipe with the villagers to obtain drinking water, and water outside of basic drinking could not be guaranteed. (During her visit, a HELP volunteer saw villagers gather water from shallow water pounds brought about by rain.) Such water shortage imposes severe threat to the health of the kids who are in their crucial stage of growth. The school told HELPers that it always wished to build water pipes to bring water from the mountains 4 kilometers away.

The situation is much direr this year due to the harsh drought in the west-south regions of China. After examining the situation, HELP contacted and worked with Overseas China Education Foundation (OCEF) to build water-storage pounds and bathrooms for the school. In addition, we also built two solar-power water heaters. The project, which was successfully finished in April, costs about $9,300 ($5,280 from HELP and $4020 from OCEF). It not only brought about the priceless water in such a drought year, but also fit HELP’s goal of environment protection. It is one of the most ideal projects ever accomplished by HELP! For more details please visit www.helppanda.org .

 

As you know HELP aims to relieve poverty in a “green” way; we want to improve the living conditions for human beings and their surrounding environment together. These two projects fit these goals very well.

 

Your generous support, either through efforts or donation, has been the main reason why these projects can be conducted. We are humbled by and grateful to the fact that we share similar dreams. We promise to work hard so that every penny donated is well used. We will report to you in every quarter how the donated money is spent through the projects. We hope you keep trusting and supporting us – people in Sichuan need that. You can continue to be a volunteer. You can also donate online at www.helppanda.org and get your tax-deductible receipts; or you can also help us by clicking on the “Shop to Help” link, which leads to Amazon, Buy.com or GoodShop.

 

Similar dreams have brought you to us, and we wish you are always behind us. As an old Chinese saying goes, “Virtue will never be alone since good neighbors always stay with it” (???,???). Together, we can HELP more people!

Team HELP