“Students fund new schools in China” (From Philanthropy Journal)
Raleigh, Durham & Chapel Hill
February 2011
Andrew Poon
At the elementary school in the secluded village of Daping in Guangxi province in southern China, floors were caving in and the roof had holes in it, in part the result of earthquakes that struck nearby Sichuan in 2008. Today, the village has a new school, paid for with funds raised by students at Duke University, N.C. State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Spearheading the fundraising effort was REACH, a nonprofit formed two years ago by Andrew Poon, at the time a student at N.C. State.
Poon, who graduated in December with an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering, says that when he graduated from Enloe High School in Raleigh, he promised himself he would “change the world.”
But he woke up one morning in the spring of 2008 and “realized I hadn’t done anything.” So he founded REACH, or Relaying Empowerment – Anything Can Happen.
The nonprofit enlists students from the three Triangle universities to serve as campus representatives who organize cultural events and other activities to raise money to finance new schools in China.
REACH, in turn, teams with the Seattle-based China Tomorrow Education Foundation, a nonprofit that works to improve education in rural China and works with volunteers there who submit building proposals for new schools...
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About this person I can say China people can feel proud with Andrew Poon. He is such a brilliant person and knows well present his nation in front of this world. Thanks for nice story about him. http://www.exploreivy.com/