School Needs

We were all touched by their stories and the needs of the school. They had constructed a new bathroom building, but they lacked enough money to finish the necessary water tower to flush the waste.

Nina Ottinger offered the assistance of Founding Family Charitable Foundation to finish that project and make other needed repairs to floors, electrical fixtures, and the classrooms. The new stalls in the bathroom are pictured.

Mr. Liu's Room

Later we saw the Anding children at the eye clinic with their teacher Mr. Liu. Mr. Liu lives at the school during the week and goes home on weekends. He let me take a picture of him in his room at the school. Many teachers live at their schools. Mr. Liu was recently named one of the outstanding teachers of Yangshuo County.

Eighteen teachers serve as volunteers for Blessing Hands among 39 schools. They maintain contact with the Blessing Hands children in their area and keep track of their status, grades, families, and needs.

Blessing Hands Administrators

Malan Cai (left) was with us in Yangshuo as a translator and co-administrator. Anna Liu (center), administrator in Qinzhou, also came to Yangshuo with her family. I was glad for my two good friends to meet for the first time. They are both dedicated to children as teachers and have my heart for the children.

Gloria Wei (right) is the excellent Blessing Hands administrator in Yangshuo. She managed the plans for the eyeglass clinic making everything run beautifully. She and her family gave us a lovely supper this time.

Three Scholarships Awarded

Anna top and Jenny bottom

We also got the pleasure of interviewing students for college scholarships while we were in Yangshuo. We were able to give three $500 freshmen scholarships to three girls, Liu Raodong (Lilly), Zhang Ji Yun (Jenny), and Liang Fudi (Anna).

All three girls did well on their national exams and have been accepted into various colleges. Jenny wants to be an architect, and Anna is going to a transportation college. Lilly will go to the Guangxi Ethnic College. Blessing Hands will help them for the first year until they can take the test to qualify for government scholarships. They will continue to receive aid in proportion to their need even after they get a government scholarship until they graduate.

Great News- The IRS letter came.

Good news!  Today I received our official letter from the Internal Revenue Service, granting Blessing Hands 501 (c) (3) status with an advanced ruling date of June 30, 2010.  That means that everyone who has given to Blessing Hands can now retroactively count it as a tax deduction.  It also means that we are officially a public charity with exemption from income taxes.  It came really quick.  I was expecting a 120-day wait.  We must have done everything right with great advice.  My thanks goes to accountant Jonathan Stiles, Cindy and Matt Cutts who let me in on their nonprofit advice, and especially to Founding Family Foundation that believed in Blessing Hands before the government ever did. 
 
I am leaving for Yangshuo China in six days.  I am part of a Sister Cities Tour that is conducting an eyeglass clinic with Blessing Hands' support.  We are paying for part of the cost for eyeglasses for the Blessing Hands students and many teachers in Yangshuo.  I will get to meet each student personally when they come for their eye exam.  Nina Ottinger from Founding Family Foundation is going with us and will conduct physicals for each child.  She is a pediatric nurse among other things.  Mostly she likes to be Mom to her adopted Chinese daughter Sarah Helena. Cindy Cutts, my daughter-in-law, and her mother Janice Weeks are also going.  Janice, a third grade teacher, is going to take pictures of all the children to encourage sponsors to select children and pen pals to be matched. 
 
Anna Liu, the Blessing Hands administrator from Qinzhou, will bring her family and join us in Yangshuo for the eye clinic. Her parents direct a medical clinic that was flooded from a typhoon just last week.  Yangshuo also had two towns flooded, but no lives were lost.  Malan Cai, the administrator in Yangshuo, will be our translator and stay with us the whole trip.  Tami Jaskulski from Lexington, KY is also going to be helping with the eye clinic.  I expect to meet with the Chinese doctor who plans another operation on Qu Ling Zhu to correct the facial deformity cause by the removed tumor. I also hope to see many of my former ESL students who have returned to China. 
 
Another piece of good news is the free offer of Patti Cormican, a social worker with Lutheran Charities, to investigate writing some grants for Blessing Hands.  We hope to get money for more medical help for the children, computers for the schools, and perhaps basketball courts or playground equipment for a few schools. Now that we have our 501(c)(3) status that will be easier. There are so many needs in rural China.  I would like to see some water purification projects for the remote schools be funded.  Even Qinzhou No 1 Middle School, which is in a large city, has to boil their drinking water. The upper classmen get the boiled water first and some of the lower grade students go thirsty.
 
My final good news is that money has been coming in for the fall semester.  Two vacation Bible schools have given their mission offerings to Blessing Hands this summer. With the matching funds that Founding Family Foundation has pledged Blessing Hands will receive at least $1,200 from the American Bible School children.  I now have a power point presentation that I can easily send out to people willing to help us with fund raising, and we have engaged a webpage designer, John Fisher of Seek Ye First Computing.  If you haven't sent your donation for the fall semester, now is the time.   
 

Application for Nonprofit Completed

Blessing Hands, Inc. Newsletter - June 30, 2006

I am so glad to announce that Blessing Hands’ application to become a nonprofit charity has been sent to the US Government. It was a complicated, hard application that required the help of professionals, but it was mailed Tuesday just in time to avoid the raise in fees that was coming in July. The application process made us get all of our records in order and project a budget for two years in advance. I feel really good about the direction that we have taken and know that it will help the children.

Becoming officially a nonprofit charity allows donors to be able to deduct their donations from their income tax and that even applies to donations in 2005 when we were only a fund. When the application is approved, we will let the original donors know that they can now deduct those first donations. Being nonprofit will also allow us to apply for more grants and give us status in the eyes of possible donors, governments, and partners.

We now have a board of directors for Blessing Hands, bylaws, and a financial structure that we can build on. Our first board meeting was June 18th. We passed lots of resolutions that first meeting and set the foundation for Blessing Hands for the future. I was chosen as president of the board, Phyllis Nickel is vice president, Steve Chen, a teacher at Morehead State University, is secretary, and David Cutts is treasurer. Jeff Fannin is also on the board but not an officer for now. This charity will not die with me or be founder dependent. With an involved board the children will continue to receive help even after I am no longer personally guiding it.

The next big project for Blessing Hands is an eyeglass clinic in Yangshuo in August in cooperation with Sister Cities of Morehead. We are furnishing funds for 400 teachers to have new eyeglasses at $7.50 a pair. Most of the Blessing Hands Children in Yangshuo will also have a chance to be examined for glasses and receive them free if they are needed. This is our way of rewarding the teachers for the volunteer work they do with our Blessing Hands children. The teachers confirm the status of the children and make home visits to check on their progress and income. Many of these teachers don’t make enough money to buy themselves glasses, since the income of rural teachers can be as low at $20 a month. When I was teaching last summer I noticed that some of my teacher/students could not read the blackboard. The teacher’s medical support from the government does not cover glasses.

While we are in Yangshuo with the eyeglass clinic, Nina Ottinger from Founding Family Foundation will give all the children physicals. She is a nurse practitioner. She is bringing little gifts that the children can chose from after their physicals. We will get to meet children whose schools are too distant for us to usually visit. Children from different outlying towns will come with their teachers to the three-day eye clinic. We will pay for bus fare and a simple noodle or rice lunch for the children. While they are in China, the Blessing Hands group will also be interviewing students applying for a college scholarship that will be awarded to a graduating senior in Yangshuo.

Another exciting thing is the beginning of another tuition program for higher middle school students in Qinzhou, Guangxi, China. Anna Liu is the administrator of this tuition only program. It will fund one student in each of the 120 outlying rural schools and 60 low-income children at Qinzhou No. 1 Middle School. The government does not pay for the tuition of higher middle school students, and many are forced to drop out. While Anna was a visiting scholar at Morehead State University, she was able to fully participate in the proposal for this new program before she returned home. She is an outstanding educator respected in her county. We are blessed to have her administrative experience and skill working for the children.

I want to ask for some pressing needs. I would like to take a laptop computer to Malan Cai, Blessing Hands’ representative in China, to assist us in communicating by voice over the Internet. If anyone has a used laptop in good condition, we would really like to have it. I would also like to have some digital cameras to give to those who photograph the students and send in reports by e-mail. If you have a camera to donate please let me know. It doesn’t have to be new- just in good working order.

Of course we can always use money, especially since the fall semester is coming up. If you donated for the spring semester, it is now time to donate for the fall semester. With the matching funds that Founding Family is now offering, your donation will be doubled this time. Imagine a donation of $50 becoming $100. Their matching funds offer extends until December 31, 2006. Send your donation to Founding Family Foundation, 1004 Rodney Dr. Nashville, Tennesee, 37205-1008. Be sure and and put Founding Family Foundation on the check instead of Blessing hands, but attach a note saying it is for Blessing Hands.

There is now a paypal button on our blog where you can donate online.

Blessing Hands also needs expertise with making a webpage and brochure. If you are gifted in any of these areas and want to donate your time and experience we would be overjoyed.

Blessings, Betty Cutts

I recently received this thank you note from a Blessing Hands child. It really encouraged me to keep up the good work. I edited her English a little, but not her content.

June 10, 2006

Dear Betty

Thank you every much for giving me a hand when I was in trouble. My name is Zheng Xiao Mei, and Shirley is my English name. I come from a very poor family. Most of people are peasants In my family. I have a grandmother who is sixty years old and a brother who is studying at the high school. He will graduate from high school and go to the university this year. My mother`s leg was hurt, and she can't walk well. My father who is in bad health can`t do hard work. Now I`m studying at Yangshuo Experimental Middle school of Foreign Studies. I'm in class 8 senior 1 of 1. I like studying very much, and at school my favorite subject is English. To study in the university is my dream, but my family can`t afford my studying at school. So I would have to give up my studies and make money next term.

Having known something about me, you tried your best to help me. With your help, I can go back to school again and continue studying. In my opinion you are a very kind and warm-hearted person, just like my parent. I am very thankful to you, and made up my mind to study hard, so that I can get better results to studies to thanks for your help.
Thanks again, and I wish you all the best.

Yours respectfully,

Zheng Xiao Mei.

Blessing Hands Quarterly Report

I got to meet many new Yangshuo Blessing Hands children during my trip to China in March and see old ones again. I was there during the last part of March with a Sister Cities Group and of course visited the schools.

The children had letters and drawings to give and the older ones had self-introduction speeches to recite. I was delighted to give them Beanie Babies, candy, and other small gifts. The school principals and teachers also got small gifts like tapes and CDs. Some of the older students were able to speak and write English. At some schools we had time to have them write introductions about themselves to share with pen pals or sponsors, but at other schools we barely had time to give them English names, if they wanted one., and take pictures.

Some of the primary children we helped in the fall don't need support now, since the government is paying their tuition. We have kept 50 of our original 185 supported primary students. The support for these younger students is now $10 a semester rather than $25 as before, since they will only need help with books and school supplies not tuition. This semester we will be supporting 40 junior middle school students, which is an increase from last semester. Their $25 support will include room and board, books, and school supplies but not tuition since the government is now paying that. You can see pictures of children from Zhonghe Middle School on my blog.

Thanks to the Founding Family Grant we will be able to add 55 higher middle school children to Blessing Hands in Yangshuo this semester. We had a few before, who had special circumstances like the death of a parent, but now we will be supporting many. Being over 15 they don't receive government school tuition and are tempted to drop out of school rather than go on to high school. We can really make a difference by offering tuition and room and board to those who need our help. In mostly rural Yangshuo this will only cost $63 a semester.

Beginning with the fall semester any Yangshuo County Blessing Hands student who graduates in the spring of 2006 and is accepted into a Chinese college may apply to Blessing Hands before August 1st for a partial college scholarship during the 2006-07 school year. Scholarships will be awarded based on need, test scores, college tuition expenses, number of students applying, and availability of scholarship money for that purpose in the Blessing Hands treasury. I am hoping that you sponsors will want to support these individual scholarships. We already have awarded two $250 spring semester college scholarships at Guangxi Normal University to rural students studying to be teachers. That covers half of their tuition.

Blessing Hands branched out this semester to assist a primary school in Wuming, a Zhuang minority area near Nanning. Mr. Lu, who was a visiting scholar in Morehead, comes from the Zhuang people. He took us to his home town and Nine Mile School where 28 children needed help paying for their school books. We gave the school $175 to pay off a textbook bill. The principal there is an old classmate of Mr. Lu, and the children were delightful. We also attended a Zhuang Song Festival in Wuming.

Beginning with the fall semester Blessing Hands will be using grant money from Founding Families and your matching contributions to support higher middle school children in the Qinzhou, Guangxi area of China. Anna Liu, who is a visiting scholar at MSU, has helped to secure this grant and will administer the program in her area. 60 rural higher middle schools will receive tuition help for students while 30% of the proposal will cover children in No.1 Middle School, which serves many rural children from the area. The higher middle school tuitions in Qinzhou are $75 a semester, since it is a more prosperous area. The proposal calls for tuition help for about 280 students.

Founding Family is sending me to a course on how to start a non-profit charity. Blessing Hands has grown so much that it is now necessary to be incorporated and become an official charity. Donors will then be able to get tax receipts from Blessing Hands, but for now any donations should be given to Founding Family Foundation,1004 Rodney Dr, Nashville, TN 37205-1018. They have promised to match any donations (except donations from my relatives) to Blessing Hands up to $25,000 before December 31, 2006. The checks need to be written to Founding Family Foundation. You can see their web page at http://foundingfamily.org.

Recent Trip to Yangshuo County, China

In late March several people from Morehead went to Yangshuo to dedicate 93 Sister Cities Wheelchairs that Morehead gave to Yangshuo's handicapped citizens. While I was there as a Sister Cities tour member, I was able to visit several schools and meet our Blessing Hands children and their teachers and principals. I gave flags to each school and other small gifts such a Christmas CDs and candy. The Education Department opened their resouces to us to make our visit a success. Seeing the children in person was so much better than seeing their pictures. I could match their faces with thank you letters and even got to bless some of them with English names. Seeing their schools and homes also helped me understand their lives. We were given a royal welcome everywhere.

Qu Ling Zhu

Sister Thelma Oney, my minister, went with us on the trip to observe the Blessing Hands work. Here she is pictured with Qu Ling Zhu and her grandmother. Ling's tumor has been removed, but fluid has filled the void leaving her looking about the same as before the operation. She will have a second plastic surgery operation six months after the first one to correct her facial features and make her look normal again.

She wrote us a very good thank you letter, saying that she could talk much better now. Her grandmother gave us oranges and locally made sweets. She and Ling came to our hotel later bringing more harvest gifts to say thank you. Ling had just been to the doctor for a check up and was excited to meet us personally and entertain us in her small home near the Xingping school.

Loving Hearts Forever

The principal of Xingping Primary School made this lovely poster for us. It can be translated roughly as "the loving hearts of the world's people go hand in hand forever." We have it posted on the wall at church now. I had to iron it after it had a rough trip in my suitcase.

Xingping Primary School

We were delighted to find Qu Ling Zhu back in her regular school class. She is wearing a red hat to hide her shaved head. These children gave me drawings, and we gave them Beanie Babies and candy. Sister Cities also gave this school a computer that we got to present. I am also chairman of the Yangshuo Committee of Morehead Sister Cities, and we often work together to bless the children in Yangshuo.

Sally

Sally was reciting her self introduction when she started to cry. She was telling me the problems in her family that made it necessary for her to have Blessing Hands' support and how much she needed the tuition support. Her struggle to stay in school must have been very hard. She was doing very well with her English up till then. I couldn't help but cry with her.

Children Need More Than Tuition

I couldn't resist holding Sally in my arms when she burst out crying. She was so grateful for our help, and pressure can be very strong in China's competive testing system. She needs more than the money that helps her know that she can succeed. Being able to be there to hug her was a very special moment. I hope to find her a pen pal who she can share her hopes, sorrows, and dreams with. Amy, her teacher, was given stamps, so the children can afford to write letters to America.

Yangshuo Experimental Middle School of Foreign Studies

These are the Blessing Hands students at Yangshuo Experimental Middle School of Foreign Studies. This middle school has over 3,000 students and employs native born English speakers. Anyone wanting to teach in Yangshuo for 6 months or a year would be welcomed at this school. The school has recently added new air conditioned apartments for foreign English teachers.

These students study hard to pass college entrance exams and seek to do excellent work. Several of them said that English was their favorite subject. They can write English very well. Without our help it would be difficult for these students to remain in school after age 15 when government tuition stops. Blessing Hands will pay their tuitions in higher middle school, so they can continue to advance toward their college goals.

Jacky

This is Jacky. His mother worked hard to keep him in school after his father died. Now his sponsor will be covering his room and board and other living expenses. His sponsor will get to meet him in August during the eyeglass clinic that Sister Cities of Morehead is conducting in Yangshuo. Blessing Hands children will get free eyeglasses during that clinic, and free glasses will also be given by Blessing Hands to up to 400 teachers who cannot afford to pay for their glasses. A rural school teacher's pay is very low by town standards.

Higher Middle School Children added to Blessing Hands

Eleven students at this upper middle school in Yangshuo are enrolled in Blessing Hands this semester. They are part of the new students added this spring semester. Their school, called the Teacher Training School, has internet access, and the children are excited about getting e-mail pen pals. They each had self introductions and spoke English to us. The $75 a semester tuition for these students includes room and board since they have to leave their village to attend school. This also includes their books and supplies.

Zhonghe Middle School

These are the Blessing Hands children at Zhonghe Middle School. They had a red welcome sign out for us printed in English. Sister Cities had a computer to give the school, and we got to present it to the principal. Two of the teachers who I taught this summer teach at this school. It was nice to see them again.

Lower middle school children like these need $25 in order to afford books, supplies, and room and board each semester even after their tuition is paid by the government.

Yangdi Primary School

Yangdi welcomed us with a red banner saying thanks to Blessing Hands. 11 children there are receiving books and supplies this semester. Primary children need only $10 a semester for books and supplies, since their tuition is now being paid by the government. Six of these children are orphans. We had the pleasure of naming them English names.

Left to right- first row. Tang Yu-ping (Elizabeth), Mo Xiu-juan (Mary), Tang Yu-feng (Hannah), Mo Renjiao (Sarah), Mo Gui-yu (Rachel), Mo Bi-Xing (Martha),Mo Jian-fu(Mark) (Sarah’s brother). Back row left to right children only. Zhou Pin-Zhong, Tang Cun Jian (Nathan), Dong Xian Fang (Phillip), and Tang Ji-ming (Samuel).

Blessing Hands Scholarships

Jeff Fannin and I are standing with the two students who have been selected to receive Blessing Hands scholarships for half of their tuition at Guangxi Normal University. They were so excited to meet the Morehead group and asked many good questions in the class we taught. Amenda (Zu Wen) is on the left. She has written me e-mail asking to write American students. Any one who would like to write her can send e-mail to amendachina@126.com .

Chen Jian Hua is the other student receiving help. She is wearing the pink coat. She often missed lunch to save money and really needed help with her funds to stay in school. Both of these students come from countryside areas where living is very hard.