This is an “ordinary” story with nothing legendary or magnificent. The characters of the story are a group of students from Jilin university. At the beginning of 2020, they launched a charity campaign among student associations in the university for the sake of being kind. Just in a couple of days, more than 14,000 yuan has been raised by these youngsters. The money is barely seen as pretty much for many people. However, the students were among the first ones who actually took actions in the best interest of the public. That is why their story started with “ordinary”, but ended with an “extra” added.
A rather “plain” start
When I asked Cao Yiming the reason for launching the campaign, I assumed that a heroic story would be told. However, Cao said, “It just came to my mind in a sudden.” Well, that’s indeed unexpected.
As a interviewer, I always expect to hear some stories beginning with ups and downs.Before the official interview, I even imagined a rather touching story, “At the night of the New Year’s Eve , Cao burst into tears when watching news about the epidemic in Wuhan. With the support from his family , Cao determined to donate all his savings to the hospitals and then made a promise to launch a campaign to raise more money.” Quite the opposite, the real story did not “live up to” my imagination and wasrather “ordinary”.
Cao Yiming studies in the College of Geo-exploration Science and Technology of Jilin University. He serves as the president of the Employment and Entrepreneurship Associationin the university and initiated this campaign in the early 2020.
“I was in a chat group of a school club, that was the first day of lunar new year, I saw an upperclassman asking in the group that whether we want to donate together, I replied as soon as possible. However, it was still too late, because he had donated before my response. To be honest, I was kind of frustrated. But then I thought, why not donate by myself? There should be some people who want to make their contributions as well? ” Cao recalled. Afterwards, Cao started to plan for a fund-raising campaign with the help of his friends, Li Jiaming and Murong Jiansheng.
Though it was the first time for them to do this campaign, they were fully aware of the importance of book-keeping by browsing Weibo. Because none of them has adequate knowledge of financial management, and they need to put every coin in the practical use so that the kindness from the folks wouldn’t be failed, then they decided to ask Li Yaohui for help. After Li had joined the group smoothly, the found-raising team was then officially built.
Challenges Are Everywhere
This campaign had to be launched on behalf of individuals.
Actions must be taken without hesitation. We stayed up late to plan for the campaign and everydetail until 2 o’clock in the morning. Early in the same day, we submitted the proposal to our teacher. The teacher approved of our plans and then offered some useful suggestions. However, we were also informed that the approval process for school associations was very strict and it would take a long time during the winter holiday with many inconveniences. “But if the campaign is launched on behalf of individuals, you do not need to wait for extra audit.” The teacher added. After discussions, we decided to launch the fund-raising campaign personally.
My friends thought my social media account was hacked.
Because the campaign was launched on behalfof ourselves, the channels of promotion are quite limited. We could only share the news via the moments in QQ and Wechat. In the first few days, Cao’s friends thought his social media account was hacked for he posted many promotion information. http://www.marstranslation.com/ound the account was frozen because someone had reported me.” Cao added.
To gain more trust from his schoolmates, Cao added his details in all the promotional materials, including his class number and student ID. “With their trust, we gradually received more and more donations.” Cao added.
Keeping track of the donations
Students who have the intention to contribute will join the QQ group to donate money after the fund-raising channels are open for the public. Yiming and his friends have been keeping their eyes on the number of people to estimate how much money can be raised. In fact, Yiming and his friends had already given 6,000 yuan out of their own pocket before. While organizing donations, he was also busy contacting supplies.A social acquaintance happened to have medical gloves worth 6000 yuan when medical supplies were in short supply and prices were soaring. Yiming believed that they may not be able to buy so many things with the same amount of the money after the donation. As soon as he discussed with his friends, he paid 6,000 yuan in advance to buy the goods without using the charity money. 6000 yuan is not much, but it wasstill a heavy burden for the students who have no financial resources. Even so, they were ready to pay for the rest if the total amount did not reach 6,000 yuan.
Dealing with the extra money
The charity donations collected a total of 14,518.79 yuan, which greatly exceeded their expectations, but also bewildered them. How should they use the donations and to whom should it be donated? Yiming was keen to note that the country’s attention is focused on Wuhan, where supplies should be plentiful, while the surrounding counties and cities are also suffering from the epidemic, but with less support.Therefore, they targeted at the hospitals in the surrounding counties and cities of Wuhan, making phone calls one after another, finally located the Xiyuan Hospital in Hubei province.Hospital director Li explained that the shortage of local goggles and its standard, so they check up online stores one by one, however, most merchants are out of stock. Finally, they found out an appropriate shop. When the ownerrealized that they were helping Wuhan, he took the initiative to lower the price. The goggles priced at 95 yuan were sold at 50 yuan in the end. After double-checking all the shops, they made sure that 50 yuan was the lowest price and decided to buy them.
In this campaign, a total of 1,800 pairs of 3 casesof medical gloves and 140 pairs of medical goggles were purchased in accordance with national medical equipment standards. All these supplies were sent to Xiyuan hospital in Shiyan city, Hubei province by express. In addition to the 13,000 yuan used for material purchase, the remaining 1,518.79 yuan has been donated to the Beijing Alumni Association of Wuhan University. So far, all the money have all been well-spent.
Honing the aspirations constantly
Chatting with Yiming afterwards, I asked him if he had ever done any voluntary work before. Said Yiming of his experiences: “Yes, but it’s all for extra credits. This is my first time doing formal volunteer work.” The more I felt his honesty, the more I wanted to communicate deeply with him. When talking about the association for employment and entrepreneurship, of which he is President, he added, “I want to invite some people who are successful in employment and entrepreneurship to share. We’re responsible for the communications, the setting up, the dissemination of information, and so on and so forth.” “So you’re the heroes behind the scenes though you said you haven’t done any volunteer work yet.” I interjected, trying to play smart. He might never thought in this before, he paused for a moment and continued: “That probably counts.”
I asked who had the greatest influence on him afterwards. He said that one is his mother, and the other is teacher Huang Danian (College of Geo-exploration Science and Technology, Jilin University, who has published a book named as A Heart for the Humankind, A Heart for the China). His mother was gentle and kind, and her words and deeds influenced him a lot. Using his actions to express the love for the country, the dedication to the students, Teacher Huang Danian becomes a role model of students in Jilin University. At the end of the conversation, as we got to know each other better, he told me more the following , which I’d like to quote as the ending of this article.
“I think what the contemporary youth lack is not the ability perhaps, it is a sense of social responsibility, it is the spirit to chase after the shared benefits of humankind and the sincere spirit to serve the country. The peace and tranquility we enjoyed today was all bought by our forebears at the cost of their flesh and blood. We live among them and naturally have the responsibility to do something for the descendants. The truly good is lasting to be found while the useless malarkey is always doomed to be forgot. Apart from criticism, think more about what you can do to make some difference as the aversions occur”