A ceremony marking the first annual departure of trucks with “Warming the Western Regions” relief goods was held by the Beijing Public Service Development Promotion Association, the Beijing Blue Butterfly Foundation and the Communist Youth League Committee of Chaoyang, Dongcheng and Tongzhou Districts in Beijing on October 17th.
The chairman of the eighth branch of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomingtang in Dongcheng District Lou Penglin, Vice-chairman Luo Peilin, the secretary general of the Beijing Public Service Development Promotion Association Sun Pengfei and the secretary general of the Beijing Blue Butterfly Foundation Zhang Shijie were all in attendance.
The “Warming the Western Regions” project, begun in 2006, is China’s largest private charitable project of secondhand clothes recycling. Its aim is to encourage people in the centre and east of China to donate their secondhand clothes and books to the less developed areas of western China, like Qinghai Province, Tibet and Gansu Province, calling for more attention to poor people and especially the youth in these remote areas. Meanwhile, the project also promotes the concepts of environmental protection and waste reuse.
Zeng Yong, the ceremony’s host and also the project’s leader, had this to say: “I saw the faces of not only many old friends but also many young volunteers. This is the best symbol of the culture, history and heritage of the project. ‘Warming the western regions’ was initiated and named by famous charitable leader Mr. Talinfu. More and more volunteers take part in the project while increasing the number of people benefitting from it. This is an eloquent proof of the power of private charity.”
During the past ten years, the project’s organizers have been attempting to adhere to the spirit of the project’s founder, caring about the physical and mental health of the children in western regions and encouraging them to face their difficulties and challenges bravely. The project has received abundant attention and support from warm-hearted people in different sectors.
Every October is a significant time for this project. Thousands of volunteers from the public and student organizations spend their weekends sorting things donated by people. They work hard to bring more warmth to some of China’s least developed regions and help the children there have a warm winter. The first batch of goods will be shipped to thirteen counties in two provinces, covering a distance of more than five thousand kilometers. The whole process will be recorded in order to give feedback to the donors.
