Blessing Hands Inc
Helping people help themselves and others
Learn how to support this organization
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
In 2010, there were an estimated 9 million children living in poverty in China. Many of our students are left-behind children whose migrant parents cannot get education or health benefits for their children in the cities due to the government’s hukou system. 61 million children are left behind with relatives to attend free public schools. We serve functional orphans who do not qualify for government help or students who have some kind of personal/familial disability/ handicap. Most are female, the less preferred gender. In Myanmar, we are bringing small individual solar systems to schools and providing school supplies to students who come with few resources to the school. The closest city is Matupi which is a 3-day walk. These villages are linked by language, kinship, and Christianity. There is a network of church leaders, teachers from a local college, and village elders who are willing to carry out assistance to their village schools. These students and their villages need help.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Yangshuo Schools
In 2023, $9,627.81 in sponsorship was given. Yangshuo County, Guangxi Province was the first area where we helped students in 2005. We have a student sponsorship program involving school aid for younger children and tuition grants for high school students. We have sponsored over 450 primary school, middle school, high school, and college students in the Yangshuo area in 18 years. We enrolled 32 students in 12 schools in the fall of 2023. We have helped over 70 Yangshuo students with college scholarships in the 18 years we have been there. $237,985 over 18 years has been given for educational aid and college scholarships. $3,216 has been spent on 7 water purifiers for primary schools. $27,344 has been spent on special sponsorships, medical help, and special summer projects like art events, photography workshops, a summer camp, and clinics. $10,807 is our budget amount for 2023-2024 in Yangshuo.
Sponsorship of Rural Chinese Students.
We are helping small groups of needy students in four areas in the Guangxi Province of China. Two of the programs serve the minority groups of Yao and Miao. Each student is selected by principals, education officials, or community volunteers, who know the needs of the student's family. There are over 216 children in these 4 programs. The volunteers in these programs are college and high school teachers, a doctor, and education department employees. For primary students, we provide school aid of $250 a year. For middle school students, we provide $313 a year which covers books, clothes, and school supplies. High School sponsorships are $375 a year. We seek sponsors who will follow their progress and be interested in their lives. The sponsors get student thank you letters, pictures of the students, and family information. Sponsors are welcome to visit their children or write to them through their schools.
Philippines Sponsorship
We support 20 students in a small neighborhood church school in the slums of Manila.
In 2023-24, Blessing Hands' sponsorship will cover their tuition fees. We have 20 students and a $10,000 budget for the Philippines this year. American Volunteers visit this site once a year.
In 2021, we supported this school in efforts to transition into technology to continue school during COVID-19. We have also helped them establish a science lab.
Minority People in Chin State of Myanmar
In 2021, Myanmar erupted in political unrest and many fled to the villages we serve. A civil war followed and COVID-19 raged until the 2023-24 school year. We give school supplies, solar systems, 29 educational sponsorships, motorcycles, library books, metal roofs, and wood for the villagers to make school furniture. We give teacher salaries in two village schools in the Chin State of Myanmar. We also supported a three-month English program for 90 students in two villages in the Taubu area for two years. Three bilingual Mara-speaking teachers taught the classes. We partnered with two Taubu Villages to finish a road, build a new school, and give school supplies to students. We have printed textbooks, given aid to displaced people, and repaired school buildings after a cyclone. We provided a computer lab to a Christian high school. Our long-term goal is to improve many village schools in Maraland at the rate of 10 a year. We have one administrator and his assistant working there.
En Hui School in Chiang Dao, Thailand
We give tuition to 63 students at En Hui School. We sponsor an English Competition there yearly. In past years, we bought musical instruments, gave books to their library, and gave them 2 motorcycles. Chiang Mao is near the Myanmar border so they have many refugees. En Hui Church began its school in 2004 and has expanded to two locations in the Chiang Dao area. They have 4 kindergarten classes, 3 classes each for first - sixth grades, 2 classes of middle school students, and one high school class. Students go to government schools, but En Hui offers after-school classes in Chinese, math, and some English. We work with two English teachers there who select and guide our students.
Twenty to thirty percent of the people in Chiang Dao cannot move out of the border area for work because they are not citizens of Thailand. Families cannot own land since they have no citizenship. Drug traders are active near the border and no one is safe after dark.
College Scholarships
In 2024, we will give up to 48 scholarships.
In 2021, we gave 27 college scholarships to our students.
Blessing Hands students plan to be teachers and study medicine or pharmacy, financial management, and computer programming. Many students come from heavily forested areas and plan to study forestry to return home and help preserve the beauty of their homeplace.
Tanzania Maasai Girls' Program
We are partnering with the Maasai Pastoral Women's Council and Emanyata Secondary School to ensure five Maasai girls remain in school and complete their education. Maasai girls are often pressed into early marriages and not encouraged to finish school. Blessing Hands believes education will empower them with the knowledge to transform their personal lives, families, and communities. Join us in changing lives among the Maasai.
Camphor School in Liberia
Blessing Hands partnered with Camphor School in Liberia to sponsor 10 students from rural areas. They are girls and boys who sometimes have to board at school since it is too far to go home. The school serves village children from farming families. The goal is to increase the education opportunities in this area and help students find work and employment following graduation.
Where we work
Awards
Affiliations & memberships
Certified as a Foreign Non-Governmental Organization in Guangxi Province, China 2017
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of students enrolled
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
En Hui School in Chiang Dao, Thailand
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Our programs in China have decreased as China's Poverty programs have been successful. We are adding many more children in other countries like Liberia, Tanzania, Thailand, Myanmar, and Philippines
Number of schools established in rural communities
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
At-risk youth, Economically disadvantaged people, Ethnic and racial groups, Widows and widowers
Related Program
Minority People in Chin State of Myanmar
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
We have helped build two schools in Myanmar in the 2023-2024 school year: Lovia School and Old Taubu School. We have given funds to repair two schools from cyclone damage Lovia School and COME sch.
Total dollars received in contributions
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people, At-risk youth, Ethnic and racial groups
Related Program
College Scholarships
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Donations received are designated to specific students sponsored. General funds allow program development, such as school supplies. Management only became necessary as the budget surpassed 200,000.
Total dollar amount of scholarship awarded
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Economically disadvantaged people, At-risk youth, Ethnic and racial groups
Related Program
Sponsorship of Rural Chinese Students.
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
2020 is an obvious increase due to a generous partnership with another foundation. scholarship amounts will fluctuate with the number and age of our students.
Number of students who receive scholarship funds and/or tuition assistance
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
At-risk youth, Economically disadvantaged people
Related Program
Sponsorship of Rural Chinese Students.
Type of Metric
Outcome - describing the effects on people or issues
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Programs shift students, but Blessing Hands goal is to see each student all the way through college. Some programs drop due to difficulty receiving funds. Some students drop due to moving.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Reports and documents
Download strategic planLearn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Blessing Hands' ultimate goal is to encourage charities and volunteerism in China, Myanmar, Thailand, Liberia, and the Philippines. In Mainland China, people wonder if charities are scams or trying to influence China toward Western ideas. Lions' Clubs exist in large Chinese cities, but most charitable efforts are done by the government through their own approved channels. People are suspicious of government charity efforts. Our goal is to influence the students themselves to become informal volunteers and givers in their communities and schools. By requiring our older students to do 3 hours of volunteer service a semester, we open the idea that they can help society not just their own families. We want our students to be leaven to get the idea of the blessings of giving out into the groupthink. Every school and child we touch can see our open blessing hands coming from a foreigner. They begin to want to also give and help.
Teachers, scholars, government officials, and businessmen are catching the idea of charity and giving to their own poor. I hear them say that if a foreigner can come all this way to help their children, surely they can step up and help also. Our immediate goal is to improve the lives of students and keep them in school. Our larger goal is to grow charitable students who can take loving and caring for others wherever they go for the rest of their lives. We want them not just to become rich and prosperous, but to become kind and loving to those who are suffering as they once suffered. Even now, most thank you letters we get will say they want to do what we are doing someday. They say they want to spread love and concern as we do. They are very grateful.
In the next 3 to 5 years we hope to fund small village schools in Myanmar to help 12 to 30 students in desperate need. These children will be from Mara minority remote groups In Maraland. We want the overseas Mara themselves to take the initiative to help their own poor. We want to attract more sponsors and volunteers both overseas and within Myanmar and China who can communicate easily with their students and model charity in action. We want to encourage the establishment of more Myanmar charity boards overseeing what we do. People helping people one at a time can change the mindset to one of service. They can do a much better job of reaching out to their communities in their languages. Many students will have their dreams fulfilled and begin to dream different dreams of giving and loving the poor. We want to raise the literacy levels in remote rural schools and raise expectations but we want these expectations to also include giving and caring for others.
In 2023, we partnered with a village school in Liberia to encourage education for impoverished families. Our goal is to encourage students to complete High School and learn to be productive members of society.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
How will Blessing Hands encourage volunteerism, giving, and charities in our service areas? Blessing Hands has officially registered in China as a foreign NGO and maintains an assistant director there. We are registered with the Security and Education Departments of Guangxi Province and submit plans and our budget before we start our programs each year. We are modeling how a charity conducts itself with transparency and inspiration. We expect the high school students, not just the college students, to volunteer to help others. The college students report their volunteer activities, and we sometimes feature their accounts and pictures in our newsletters. The other students then get inspired and want to experience the same things. More volunteer stories need to be included in our newsletters. WeChat is the Facebook of China except it is more flexible and easier to share. We can easily interact with our students and encourage interaction and volunteerism there. It is not as easy to have summer camps anymore as in China, and the USA and China are often disagreeing on trade and social issues, but students and volunteer teachers still welcome our help and influence.
As China retreats from foreigners, Blessing Hands is branching out into Myanmar and adding more students in the Philippines and Thailand. We are working with Mara minority villages that have no electricity or roads and use barter and slash-and-burn agriculture. We expect to add more villages this year and hope to add 60 more schools in the coming years. We are giving school supplies, solar systems, and other necessities to these schools. We plan to sponsor a 3-month English program for 90 students in two villages. This was suggested by the charity boards organized in our first villages. Pastors, village elders, and teachers suggested this idea of how we could help. We have given motorcycles to schools and other needed items to improve their opportunities and open windows to the outside world.
A local 30-year-old college student, Bie Paw, a refugee in the USA from Maraland, has been handling our programs to help several villages. The closest city is Matupi, which is a 3-day walk. These villages are linked by language, kinship, and Christianity. Elders and pastors in these villages will oversee the implementation of the aid to the schools. An administrator and his assistant are paid a reasonable salary acceptable in the local economy for a college-educated person.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Our board has three Chinese members. These board members have resources in friendship circles, family connections, or financial blessings that make them valuable resources for our students and activities. Our staff members and volunteers in China also have extensive friendship and relative circles that are interested in helping their own poor rural students. Our staff uses their connections to introduce us to new volunteers and Chinese charities. Our board members, staff, and volunteers are proud of what we are doing and set an example of charity for others. We have good Chinese government relations especially in Yangshuo, since our city, Morehead, KY, is the Sister City of Yangshuo.
We join in joint projects with Morehead Sister Cities in Yangshuo. We have exchanges between the two sister cities including mayors and education officials. We have spent more than $238,000 over ten years for Yangshuo students and $27,000 on other activities. The head of the Yangshuo foreign office is Gloria Wei, our first volunteer administrator in Yangshuo in 2005. She has passed her Blessing Hands responsibilities to others, but still helps our students all she can. Yangshuo encourages Blessing Hands projects in Yangshuo.
Our visiting scholar friends are willing to help us with projects and initiatives. They sometimes collect books, used clothes, and school supplies for us to take into Yao minority areas. Some of them help us with driving or other transportation. Our alumni also want to help and get involved. They are proud to be associated with Blessing Hands and want to be identified with a charity helping their people.
We are doing well financially. We have begun an endowment fund with the Bluegrass Community Foundation in Lexington and presently have over $174,860 invested there with a spendable balance of $6,937.00. We have also started a Blessing Fund that accepts stocks and other unusual donations. We have a stock account worth approximately $48,214. We have long-time sponsors staying with their commitments and expanding their loyalty. One donor has a large farmhouse that is earmarked for our charity when the time is right. Another has set up a charitable remainder trust for us. We see the potential for many more Chinese donors worldwide through the Internet. We have partnerships with other international charities in China, especially Dandelion Children's Foundation, which helps us give sponsorship to our students.
In Myanmar, we have very enthusiastic village connections that want to help the Mara minority. In Thailand, Enhui School is growing and needs our help to continue to sponsor their children.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
We are satisfied with our progress for over 18 years. We are aiding or sponsoring 446 K-High School students in China during the 2023-2024 school year. In addition, we have 32 Chinese students receiving Blessing Hands college scholarships in 2023-2024. We have helped over 1,483 individual students in China, Myanmar, Thailand, Liberia, Tanzania, and the Philippines. Many other students have received shoes, books, or school supplies but were not recorded by name in our records. Our first year's donations came to $55,061 in 2006. Our latest year showed $202,546 in donations.
We have gradually expanded our programs in China, Myanmar, Thailand, Liberia, Tanzania, and the Philippines. We partner with Enhui School in Thailand to sponsor 60+ students. We also hope to increase the number of schools we help in Myanmar to at least 10 in 2025 and maybe 75 in total over the years to come.
Our board attendance has been consistently 90% with board members attending meetings, volunteering, and donating with enthusiasm. We have not lost many administrators or volunteers in China and very few donors.
We can see our students rising to fulfill our dreams of being blessing hands to others. We can see our goal of modeling good charity practices making a difference. Yusui graduated from college in 2016 and has a good job. When she donated books to a poor school in Myanmar, she told me she had been helping 3 students with school needs for 4 years. She said, "Just like you did, I visit them yearly, no matter how busy I am. It's my honor to help people in need like you do. I want to help them because seeing them is like seeing myself as a child. Knowing you was the luckiest thing in my life, so I also hope I can participate in the cause of love." Her words thrilled me because they show we are growing compassion and empathy in our students
We get interviewed by Chinese and US journalists, who want to advertise our charity and its mission. We go through every open door and are pleased when we find a teacher or official who is genuinely concerned for students and schools. We are quick to partner with them. Being a Foreign Non-Governmental Organization (FNGO) in China has its challenges. There are language, cultural, financial, and legal differences. The FNGO law in China requires FNGOs to partner with Chinese security bureau units. We have officially registered in Guangxi Province and have good government relations. They cite us to other charities as good examples to follow.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
-
How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
-
Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We act on the feedback we receive
-
What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
Language differences
Financials
Unlock nonprofit financial insights that will help you make more informed decisions. Try our monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights?
Learn more
about GuideStar Pro.
Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Blessing Hands Inc
Board of directorsas of 03/09/2024
Mrs. Betty Cutts
Blessing Hands
Term: 2022 - 2028
Betty Cutts
Director of Blessing Hands
Eric Zhang
Community Volunteer
Xiaomin Mai Oney
Community Volunteer
Jill Hill
Private school teacher
Kayla Mitchell
Graduate Student
Joshua Barker
Barker Drain Service
Malan Cai
College English Teacher
Matthew Kanneberg
Westrock, Inc.
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
-
Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? No -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? No -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? No
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Transgender Identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
We do not display disability information for organizations with fewer than 15 staff.
Equity strategies
Last updated: 08/01/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We disaggregate data to adjust programming goals to keep pace with changing needs of the communities we support.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.