Blessing Hands Inc

Blessing Hands' ultimate goal is to encourage charities and volunteerism in China, Myanmar, Thailand, and the Philippines. In Mainland China, people wonder if charities are a scam 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 our own 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 add small village schools in Myanmar where we can help 12 to 30 students who are in desperate need. These children will be from Mara minority remote groups In Maraland. We want the 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 that 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 own communities in their own 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 including giving and caring for others.

How will Blessing Hands encourage volunteerism, giving, and charities in our Chinese 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 easy 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 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 3 Mara minority villages that have no electricity or roads and use barter and slash and burn agriculture. We expect to add two more villages this year and hope to add 70 more schools in the coming years. We are giving school supplies, solar systems, and other necessities to these children. Presently, we are sponsoring a 3-month English program for 90 students in two villages. This was suggested by the charity boards organized in our first two villages. Pastors, village elders, and teachers suggested this idea of how we could help. We have given three motorcycles to the 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, who is 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 will be paid a reasonable salary acceptable in the local economy for a college-educated person.

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, especially in art. We often 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 their foreign office is Gloria Wei, our first 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 always excited to see us again when we come to China and 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 own 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 $113,604.08 invested there. We have also started a Blessing Fund there that can accept stocks and various other unusual donations. We have long time sponsors who are staying with their commitments and expanding their loyalty. One donor has a large farm that is earmarked for our charity when the time is right. Another has set up a charitable remainder trust for us. We also have a big contribution in 2020 of $122,000 from a family foundation that usually gives each year. As China's fortunes grow, Chinese donors are opting for giving of themselves rather than buying more luxuries. We see the potential for many more Chinese donors worldwide as the internet grows. We have partnerships with other international charities in China, especially Future Smile Foundation, which helps us give sponsorship to our own students, who are in other provinces where our official Guangxi registration is not honored.

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.

We are very satisfied with our progress for over 14 years. We are sponsoring 279 K- 12 students in China during the 2019-2020 school year. In addition, we have 42 Chinese students receiving Blessing Hands college scholarships in 2019-2020 and have given scholarships to 140 college students in 14 years. We have helped over 1,483 individual students in China, Myanmar, Thailand, 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 $222,428 in donations.

We have gradually grown through the years and expanded our programs in China. Myanmar, Thailand, and the Philippines. We have a plan in the fall to begin to help Enhui School in Thailand sponsor 50 students. We also hope to increase the number of schools we help in Myanmar to at least 5 and maybe 75.

Our board attendance has been consistently 96% with board members attending meetings, volunteering, and donating with enthusiasm. We have not lost many administrators or volunteers in China and very few donors. Most of all we are seeing increased interest by Chinese and US citizens in participating as volunteers and donors in our programs.

We can see our students rising up 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 has been helping 3 students with school needs for 4 years. She said, "Just like you did, I visit them every year, no matter how busy I am. It’s my honor to help people in need like you do. I really want to help them because seeing them is like seeing myself as a child. Knowing you is 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, but we are really 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 NGO in China has its challenges. There are language, cultural, financial, and legal differences. The new NGO law implemented in China requires foreign NGOs 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. We have helped other charities also register by advising them on the best ways to do things under the Chinese charity law.