A recent report by the Yanzhao Evening News tells the story of 23 junior high classmates who donated their Spring Festival spending money to a girl in need in Hebei Province. For days on end, the group of classmates from Baoding had been fixated on a trending Wechat post about the impoverished 12 year old girl. “Last year we got together and spent money on drinks and entertainment for ourselves, but this year we are spending the same money on food and supplies for a girl in need”, one of the classmates, called Pang Shi Cong, told interviewers yesterday.
Pang Shi Cong explained that his group of junior high classmates graduated 17 years ago, but last year’s Spring Festival was the first time for them to meet since graduating from university. Last year, the group recalled memories of their youth while eating out and singing karaoke together, each of them spending about 100 RMB. Just before this year’s Spring Festival, Pang Shi Cong was browsing Wechat when he discovered a trending post about an impoverished girl who lives in a nearby village.
The girl just started 4th grade this year. Her mother left her when she was three months old, and when she was four her father also left when he remarried. She now lives with her grandparents in a seven square meter cottage exposed to the elements in the hills, and they must travel more than ten kilometers each way for fresh drinking water. Due to her grandfather’s osteoporosis, he can no longer raise sheep and so the family now struggles to make ends meet off their beekeeping business.
After reading this, Pang Shi Cong called upon his classmates to come together and donate money to the girl’s family during this year’s Spring Festival.
On January 31, the 23 classmates got together to celebrate the New Year and pooled over 2000 RMB together to purchase food and supplies for the girl’s family. On the way home from delivering the donations, they all exclaimed: “This year’s Spring Festival money was well spent!” Numerous Wechat users liked their post and one user called Xiao Yu commented underneath it, saying: “This is the most meaningful get-together! Such a lot of positive energy!”
