Easter Shoes

H A P P Y  E A S T E R Best blessings for a wonderful Easter filled with sweet treats and the joy of spring. Blessing Hands You can make a difference to primary children in Longfu Township by giving $25 for them to have new shoes and school supplies for spring.  Consider it a Easter gift that will keep on giving as they walk home over rough mountains and rocks.     Give children new shoes The shoes even look like Easter eggs.

We Got A $10,000 Grant.

Subject: We Got a $10,000 Grant

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We Got a $10,000 Grant! We got a $10,000 grant for tuitions for 76 students in 8 schools in the Qinzhou Prefecture, Guangxi Province, China.  Hsing-Ming Chang Charitable Foundation GIves $10,000 Hsing-Ming Chang at Fu-Ning, Jiangxu Province  (江蘇,阜寧) 2006 I got a real surprise when I opened a letter to find a check for $10,000. We applied for a grant from the Hsing-Ming Chang Charitable Foundation (張新民慈善基金會) last year. They said their budget was met but maybe next year. We did not expect to hear from them without even asking again. The grant will be used for high school tuitions for 76 students in 8 schools in the Qinzhou Prefecture in Guangxi Province, China. Wow, what wonderful news for our volunteers and students in Qinzhou. Ming-Bing Chang with his father The foundation is named for Hsing-Ming Chang, who died in December 2013. He lived a simple life but was very generous. In 2000 he set up a Hong-Tu scholarship (鴻圖清寒獎學金) at his hometown of Fu-Ning, Jiangxu Province (江蘇,阜寧). The scholarship is still helping students.  He also made numerous contributions such as a library at Yun-Zhai Elementary School (羊寨), a bridge and a nursing home at Yun-Zhai, and a gymnasium at Fu-Ning High School. His son Ming-Bing Chang is carrying out his father's wishes.  Four Ways to Help our Students Through Planned Giving 1. IRA Rollover: Congress has generously provided a way to avoid income taxes on Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA's) that have matured for people over 70 and a half years old. You can give the obligated payouts from your IRA to Blessing Hands and avoid income taxes on the payout while also getting a tax deduction on your gift. It is a win/win for you and our students.  2. Appreciated Stocks: If you bought stocks when they were $10 and they are now worth $800, you will have to pay a lot of capital gains in income taxes when you sell them. However, by giving those stocks directly to our students through a stock donation to Blessing Hands, you can avoid high capital gains and get a tax deduction for the current value of the stocks. Everyone is blessed.  3. Insurance Policies: You can make our students ,through Blessing Hands, the beneficiary of your insurance policy.  This works well if it is no longer needed for your heirs or fits with your estate planning to avoid high inheritance taxes.  4. Gifts Through a Will: You can remember our students in your will. This is a marvelous way to continue to insure that your sponsored Blessing Hands students continue to get their sponsorship all the way through to graduation. You can even designate gifts for future students who will need college scholarships.  Like Hsing-Ming Chang, I am planning for these types of gifts that makes a huge difference now and can even keep on giving long after I am gone. Contact us for more help on these ways of giving.  Bless our students,  Betty Cutts Founder and Director of Blessing Hands.  Betty Cutts Zhanghuang Students Zhanghuang High School Our volunteers in Qinzhou visited this and other high schools recently to give tuitions to the students. I started getting chats and pictures from the students right away thanking Blessing Hands for helping them. I especially liked the picture where the students had written "We are Family" . You can see our Pinterest.com page about the visit by clicking on the picture above.  None of these students had sponsors. They were supported from our general fund. Now they are sponsored by the Hsing-Ming Chang  Charitable Foundation. Isn't that wonderful.  There are still about 84 students in Qinzhou who need sponsors, You can sponsor one of them for $190 a year, which pays their tuition. They are so proud to be Blessing Hands students. Give $15 monthly to sponsor a high school student. Give Monthly to Make a Difference Giving monthly is easy to set up through you free bill pay at your bank. It is also easy to do through PayPal.  Just check the box that saysMake this Recurring (Monthly) on the  PayPal page. It is easy for you and makes our budget planning easier. Sponsorship payments are never forgotten and students have security. Visit our Website Lan Hua Needs a Sponsor This is the story of Lan Hua. Hua is from a Yao minority family. Her mother and father are gone, but she still lives by the exhortations of her father to study and learn.  .  Here is Lan Hua's story in her own words. Her beloved teacher confirmed her story and added that she would come barefoot to school but would stay outside to listen since she could not afford the tuition that had to be paid back then.  Walking on a Long Journey - My Medical Dream   A dismal little room with clay walls, one small table and some tools, a small bed, this was my house when I came to this world. I was born in a poor village, and was sealed with "the poor" when I was born. When I was three years old, my mother got away from my father and me since she could not tolerate the poverty.  From then on, my life became more miserable than ever before.  In my father's entire life, he has tried every way to make some money, such as growing grain, beans, working in towns nearby as a porter, but my family still could not get away from the poverty.   I was not able to go to school as my peers because my father could not afford it. I was so envious of those   who were able to go to school. Many times I followed far behind them going to the school. Standing against the window of the classroom, I looked into the classroom and listened to the teacher. I so enjoying those moments.   Eventually, my father sent me to the school with a load of corn. I understand that my first class was as significant as that load of corn, even though that school could only offer lessons for the first and second grades. I started doing housework such as doing laundry and cooking before I was able to go to school. I studied diligently, was granted very good points, and won my teachers' admiration and respect.     When I was in my first grade, my grandmother fell down from a little attic in my house and got injured seriously. It took us a lot to cure my grandmother. In my second grade, my father's leg was broken by a falling tree when he was logging for a living. That was the most miserable period in my life. My family has entered into heavy debt since then.   When I finished my second grade, I had to go to another school which was five kilometers away from my house. For four years, I had to walk that far to go to school and ate only one meal every day. My father's leg recovered later. When I was eleven years old, my father became an out-of-town worker in order to save money for my brother and me to go to middle school.   I graduated from elementary school with the highest honors and grades in my county and was accepted by the only key middle school in my county. On my way to the middle school, my father warned me to study hard, that was his only desire for me. Three years later, I graduated from the county key middle school and was accepted into the city key high school.   Although the county key high school had offered me wonderful policies, my father insisted that I should go to the city key high school to receive the best education. He was willing to sell everything he had to afford for me to be educated. My father had little education, yet he knew the importance of knowledge. He did not want his daughter to live the same life as he did.   My father passed away when I was a junior in high school, and I lost my only support. He died owing. He worked too hard to take a break, which seriously hurt his liver and consequently, his liver function failed. Fortunately, I got an assistantship with the great help from my head teacher. I finished my study in high school and was accepted by Guangxi Medical University. I enrolled in a seven-year program of clinical medicine.     I was happy because I realized my father's dream; meanwhile, I was sad as I did not know how I was going to be am able to afford my study. I was very grateful, that I received a college student loan and finished my first year of study.  I have applied for another batch of loans for my sophomore year, but the loan I got is not enough to pay my schooling bill.  My brother is an apprentice and gets little pay, so he is not able to help me. My two uncles have their families to afford, and it is hard for them to help me. I understand, it is costly to study in medical school, and maybe this major is not suitable when considering my economic situation. But I believe, since I have chosen this way, I am willing to stand on my dream, pursue and realize it.   I wish I could get any help so I could walk further.   Lan Hua Lan Hua is always willing to volunteer to help others.  Blessing Hands began to sponsor her last year, but Lan Hua needs a sponsor to see her through to graduation from Guangxi Medical University in 2019. Her scholarship from Blessing Hands is $650 for the year. Investing in Hua would help many people in the future.  She is a selfless person, who is willing to help others and volunteer.  Click Here to sponsor Lan Hua with any amount.    $650 Children's new shoes Lin Wang School Gets Books, Shoes, and a New Book Cabinet Three of our volunteers visited Lin Wang School over Christmas vacation.  Once they saw the tattered shoes the kids were wearing, Xiaoling Mai volunteered to help us buy shoes for the kids.  Xiaoling is an administrator in a large elementary school in Nanning. She asked to also buy some new books especially for the school. Then she asked for a cabinet to protect the books. Fortunately a donor had given $400 for books earlier. She was able to have all these things delivered through the merchants. Click on the picture to see more about their visit to the school.  You too can give books and shoes to the elementary schools in Longfu Township.   Give $25                   Give any amount on our donation page.   Give $50   Give $100 Bless you all,  Betty Cutts for Blessing Hands           Blessing Hands, 106 Timber Lane, Morehead, Ky 40351 | WeChat: blessing_hands |             Phone: 606 207 4785 | Email: blessinghands@gmail.com | Website: www.blessing-hands.org We are coming close to 500 likes on Facebook. Help us get there.  Connect with Betty Cutts on WeChat at zhufuzhishou

Blessing Hands, 106 Timber Lane, Morehead, KY 40351