Welcome to our Blessing Hands Blog

Thanks for visiting our website and learning about our charity that helps impoverished children stay in school.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

August News - New Video on Youtube


Good News for the Zhang Family


Lufei Will Live On

So many of you have been concerned for Lufei's family. I have good news. The Chinese government has given the family a sizable settlement much like the earthquake victims are getting. It cannot replace Lufei, but it does help her family in this time of loss and grief.


More good news - We have launched the Lufei Children's Fund to help other children in Yangshuo. Johnathan Thornsberry, our film student intern for the fall, has made a professional Public Service Announcement to play on TV stations. You can see and download it at this address. Maybe you can even get your group to watch it and respond.


Send it to your friends with a recommendation for action. It shows the place where Lufei was washed away in the sudden flood that caught her as she was playing on a road construction site. We also plan to have a radio public service announcement ready soon. We may even participate with another nonprofit in a information program about Chinese education.


Scholarship Applications are Being Checked


This is the time of year that graduating students find out if they will be accepted into the colleges of their dreams or have to go find work in Chinese cities. Blessing Hands has our 5 person scholarship committee rating the 92 scholarship applications we have received from our students. Over half of them will not be accepted into colleges.


I received a letter today from one of our students who has taken a summer job in a factory near Hong Kong. I wish with her that she could go to college.


Yes,the work in factory is very hard. I have to work about 13 hours a day. I have a little time to rest, and the free time is not enough. I have to work from 8 to 12 in the morning, 13:30 to 17:30 in the afternoon and work from 18:30 to 23:30. The work time is so long ! .... My parents hope that I can go to college, but my family is poor. They don't have ability to support my study. So I just only can wish that I can get the scholarship, and I hope my work can have helpness to me...Huang


We want to give students like her scholarships. That is really up to you, however. All our present funds have to be budgeted for the beginning August school year. (By the way if you have not sent in your money for your sponsored child, please do so now. We will be sending out e-mail reminding you and asking on behalf of your student.) The dollar has dropped 9.4% against the yuan in a year, so our charity dollar does not go as far in China now.


As soon as we get the results of the scholarship committee and know which students have been accepted in college, we will start featuring them in our newsletter and ask for sponsors for them. We can only give scholarships to those students who sponsors pick.

Good News 13 of our girls who got scholarship grants from a foundation last year have excelled and made excellent grades. They are reapplying for their grants for the coming year. Many of our 7 male scholarship students from last year made outstanding grades too. We are proud of them all.


Several of our students will be going to college with the help of their long time sponsors. We always try to match up sponsors with students so that they will grow together over the years. They get to know one another well, and when college needs arise, sponsors are often eager to help their special student. Lilly, one of our third year scholarship girls recently got a sponsor, who is helping her with her tuition this year.


Anna Liang, who is one of our first students to go to college, still does not have a sponsor. She is studying management and makes excellent grades. Usually we ask sponsors for $500 scholarships, but Anna has a more expensive tuition. Hers is 4,500 yuan or $655 US. We are hoping that a sponsor will select her or perhaps share her sponsorship with another sponsor. We are featuring her in this newsletter with her scholarship essay from 2006.

I'm Anna. I come from a poor but happy family in Yangshuo County. My father and mother are both farmers, and I have a younger sister and a younger brother. My sister is studying in school, and my brother is a student also.
My parents work hard day after day to bring us up and afford the cost of our studies. As we have only a little field and my mother has never been taught in school, it is impossible for my parents to make enough money for the expenses of the whole family. In some months of the year, we even can't have any income.
Now, I am enrolled in Chongqing Jiao Tong University. The great deal of cost makes the situation worse. I'm so urged to catch the chance to get further teaching that there is no way for me to give up. So I apply for the Blessing Hands scholarship and hope it can help me make my dream come true.
I'm always a hardworking and outgoing girl and have been the monitor of my classes during almost all my past student lifetime. On holidays I work as a receptionist in a hotel and have won praise from my boss. So I believe that I can be an excellent student in the university and even in my future work.
I'm so thankful that I have been one of the Blessing Hands students. I will remember its spirit every minute and hope I can get the chance to help others. That's all my story and determination. I extremely hope that I can be one of your good friends.
Wish you a nice day.
Yours,
Anna Liang


Become Anna's Sponsor for $655. You can use the Google Checkout button to the right of this entry. If you can share in Anna's sponsorship but can't afford the whole amount, write to BlessingHands@gmail.com


You can make a difference in the life of a student.


The $500 that we ask for our students is like $4,000 US in China. What a wonderful gift that keeps on giving. Be a great blessing to a college student. There is a Google Checkout button on the top right of this page. You can give any amount there and all the money with no service charge will go to Blessing Hands.


Sponsor a student for a semester $250

Sponsor a student for a year $500


Call for more information: 606 784 4785

Write blessinghands@gmail.com to find out how to give if you are in another country.


David Shuster, who bought our donated car, and Betty Cutts were at the courthouse recently transferring the title of the car. Remember us when you have a car to donate.


Also remember the yard sale this weekend if you live in Morehead. It is in the parking lot of Adkin's Florists from 8-4 0'clock. Donate an item or come shopping. We can put you to work as a volunteer too.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Yard Sale August 2nd



Buy a Treasure and Bless Children

All you folks that live in Morehead Kentucky are invited to our second Blessing Hands Yard Sale on Saturday August 2nd. We have lots of great things including a bicycle, about 7 tents (both one man and family size), cartons of Ale 8 soda, a car top carrier, a fax machine, children's clothes, large size clothes, and camping equipment such as a camp table, chair, and stove. There are lots of blankets, bedrolls, and craft items. We hope to make twice as much this yard sale and also bless you with great bargains.

The sale will be from 8 to 4 in the parking lot of Noah's Ark Day Care and Adkinson's Florists. It is right on the four lane highway on the way to the interstate on Flemingburg Road. You are welcomed to bring items by the day of the sale to contribute or join us as volunteers.

Proceeds from the sale will go to the Zhang Lufei Children's Fund to honor one of our primary children who drowned in the recent Yangshuo Flood. Yangshuo is the Sister City of Morehead, KY. We hope to make her memory live one through helping other children like her.

Google Adwords Grant



Subject: Blessing Hands awarded a Google Adwords Grant
Blessing Hands News




Now People all over the world will hear about Blessing Hands and join hands to help our kids.
Blessing Hands Has Great News!

Blessing Hands


Receives


Google Adword Grant!
Great News!
Google, the search engine company, is giving Blessing Hands $10,000 worth of advertising every month as a grant. We will have ads that appear when our key words are activated on Google. For example if someone types in "sponsor children", our ad for sponsoring Chinese students in Yangshuo or Qinzhou will appear on the left side of the search page where ads are featured or on the left side of Gmail e-mail messages.
When people click on our ads, they will be sent to our web page where they can sign up for a newsletter, support a child, or donate to the Lufei Children's Fund or the Flood Relief Fund for Yangshuo. We have asked for international ads. That means we can touch people in other nations such as England and Taiwan where we already have donors.

They will give us a Google Optimization Specialist, who is a volunteer Google employee, to help us with ads, pick keys words to use in advertising, and communicate with our charity. Such an advertising program has the potential to multiply our donor base and help many more students.
They even expedited our application because of the immediate need for flood funds and college scholarship sponsors. Google is a great company!
Check out our web page http://www.Blessing-Hands.org
and see where the ads will lead.
Thanks!
Betty Cutts

The donated car has been sold for $990!


A local retired teacher bought the car to replace his gas guzzler. He now works in an auto parts store and can repair the minor things wrong with it. My neighbor, who donated the car, gets to deduct the $990 from his income tax. Maybe you have a car to donate so kids in China can get an education.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Good Search Lets you give to Blessing Hands with every search or purchase you make on-line.


GoodSearch.com and GoodShop.com

Support Blessing Hands just by searching the web or shopping online.


We have started to raise money for the Lufei Girls' Fund immediately by signing up with GoodSeach. Blessing Hands can earn money from you online without you giving a cent.

For example I just bought a wedding gift on line for a friend. Now Blessing Hands will get 2-5% of that on-line purchase as a gift from Wal-Mart.

To shop with us go to GoodSeach.com and write Blessing Hands in the selection box as the charity you want to support in GoodSearch. Then click on GoodShop and proceed to the list of stores, such as Amazon, Half.com, and Ebay, who cooperate with GoodShop.

DOWNLOAD the GoodSearch toolbar.

It's easy to earn money for Blessing Hands when you have the GoodSearch tool bar installed in your browser. GoodSearch has toolbars for Internet Explorer 6 and 7 and search box plugins for Firefox, IE7 and Safari. Click here for download instructions.

Just start using GoodSearch.com as your search engine and online shopping mall. Every time you search the Internet or make an online purchase at one of their partner merchants, GoodSearch makes a donation to us. You get good search results too, since this is a yahoo search.


If 100 people begin to search with us and make two searches a day, we will earn $730 a year. If those same people also shop on line and buy $500 worth of merchandise in a year, Blessing Hands would earn $2,230 a year in extra donations. Spread the word and even more people will search with us.



We hope you will tell folks who might join GoodSearch with us and grow Lufei's Girls' Fund.


It is something we can do to honor her continually and help other little girls like her. Everyone searches the net. Why not do something good while you search or shop? Take a little extra time to check it out. GoodSearch and Goodshop

Sincerely,

Betty Cutts
Blessing Hands

Visit to the Zhang Family


Lufei Girls' Fund logo
July 2008

Zhang Lufei
As most of you know, we lost one of our Blessing Hands girls Zhang Lufeiwhen she drowned in the Yangshuo Flood. She fell into a ditch near a bridge on her way home from school and "no longer lives" as the e-mail said. However, we are determined to let her memory "live on" through a fund in Zhang Lufei's name that would help other girls like her get an education.


Lufei's Family Received Your Donations


logoTrey and Heather Cain, friends from Morehead who were in Yangshuo on June 30th, visited the Zhang family to extend our sympathy and gave them the $110 already donated for Lufei's funeralfather.


More donations have come in since for the family The amount is now nearly $550. Special thanks
goes to the KYCAA (Lexington Chinese American Association) that gave $300 to her family.

Lufei's family lives in a mud brick house with an extended family of eight relatives including an uncles' family. The family has agreed to the formation of Zhang Homethe girls' fund in Lufei's name.

We visited the Zhang family on Monday, which was a very somber time. Their family is of course still deeply in mourning. We had a bowl of porridge with them that Lufei's grandmother prepared, and Lufei's father signed the necessary paper work to start up a fund in Lufei's name. (Trey Cain)


You can see more pictures on-line by clicking on the pictures or here.

The Zhang family lives in a typical Chinese extended family of eight people including Lufei's uncle's family. This is their kitchen and front door with red New Year decorations still in place. The house, like most rural Chinese homes has one large great room were the family lives and eats together with smaller rooms for each family unit opening off the great room.

homekitchen


















shed



Shoes are stored by the door.
Transportation is by bicycle or motorcycle. A shed usually holds tools, wood, and perhaps the family's latrine or pig.


great room



Guests in a Chinese home are usually seated on small stools and served tea or bottled water in the families' great room. The Zhang family were gracious hosts to Heather, Trey, and Lufei's teacher.



Lufei's School


Aishan Primary schoolGloria Wei took Trey and Heather to see Aishan Primary school. Lufei's teacher and prinicpal went with Trey and Heather to the Zhang home. On the way they stopped at the ditch where she drowned.

teacher and principal








Gloria Wei, our administrator in the county of Yangshuo, made all the arrangements and traveled with them.

Gloria Wei and Trey Cain
Lufei's classmates in grade two

classmates