Some
Frequently Asked Questions
We thank Jin-Yi Cai, Ye Fang, Xiaomei Liao, Liming Lin, Tal
Sutton, Bing
Wang, Jue Wang, and Lijing Wang for helping on web design and
maintenance. If you have any suggestion or find some mistakes, please
email me
at thyang@math.wisc.edu. Thanks a lot in advance.
Q:How do I know the donation actually goes to the needy students?
A:Please be assured that all your donation does
directly to the
needy students. The key is openness in every aspect of this operation.
Tonghai
Yang covers the expenses (registration fee and so on), and part of the
member
fee in Ningguo Sino-US
Education
Association (NSUSEA)covers the operation expenses in
a. Students fill out an application form, which requires references and recommendations from two teachers and the principal. This occurs in March.
b. Volunteers at NSUSEA interview the needy students in person.
c. A committee of 10 volunteers at NSUSEA determine the recipients and amounts of the scholarships based on needs.
d. Each school publicly announces the scholarship winners at least three days before distribution of the scholarship. This allows the public to voice concern and to monitor.
e. To receive a scholarship, students and guardians must meet with a volunteer of NSUSEA and a school official. If book fees and other school fees were already paid, then the students’ family keep the money. Otherwise, the fees are deducted from the support. If a family is known to be irresponsible (I did meet one), the student’s main teacher and the principle sign a receipt for the student and take care of the money for the students (buy lunches and/or school supply if any was left after school fees).
f. The NSUSEA publishes the names of the scholarship recipeints (Chinese) as well as donation and expenses(Chinese) in the local paper, Today’s Ninguo, so the public can monitor. NSUSEA puts these information on web for public support, awareness and monitoring.
Finally, I like to mention that all the volunteers have been to some needy students' homes. Believe me, once you have been there, you are left with such a strong impression on positive impact of our efforts.
Q: Why does the Hometown Education Foundation
restrict
financial aid to only
A: I was a middle school teacher in Ningguo for 3 1/2 years
and, in
that time, became friends with many other dedicated teachers in the
area. It is
with these teachers that I entrust the difficult task of investigating
and
locating the children that most need financial support, perhaps in the
future
the charity will grow to be able to encompass more impoverished
counties. For
the moment you can rest assured that any donation you make will go
entirely to
the most needy children of
Q: How much of my donation will directly go to the children?
A: All of you money will go to the children 100 percent. Dr. Yang covers overhead in US, and part of the member fee of NSUSEA is used to cover the overhead in China.
Q: How do you choose students to help?
A: We send a letter and forms to schools. Teachers ask the
needy
students to fill up part of the form about his/her family's financial
difficulty. Two teachers check and sign on the form and give the form
to the
principle. The principle discuss with teachers and sign up to 10
neediest
student forms and send them to Mr. Jining Hu, the executive director in
charge
of the HEF's
daily operation in Ningguo. Mr. Hu and a group of volunteers
check on the
authenticity of the applications, and decide to distribute your
donation to the
neediest students. Since we have just started this charity, we started
small
this year and collected 140 application forms from about
half of the `central' Elementary schools (having all grades 1-6), half
of the
middle schools, and
all the high schools (only 5 of them). Our first priority will be on
elementary
and middle school students.
If you have any question, please contact me (Tonghai Yang) at thyang@math.wisc.edu or (608)-263-4219.
Please make your donation by writing a check payable to The Hometown Education Foundation (HEF), and send it to
The Hometown Education Foundation
c/o Tonghai Yang
9 W.
We will update the donor list
on the
web periodically (together with donation amount) to show our
appreciation of
your generous help and the openness of the process. If you prefer to
keep your
donation anonymous, please let us know. We will keep it that way.
If you prefer personal contact, we can make arrangements for you to sponsor one or more students. We hope this will bring you even more personal satisfaction by seeing, first hand, how much of a difference your contribution makes. It costs you
$60 to sponsor an elementary school student for a year,
$80 to sponsor a middle school student for a year, and
$150 to sponsor a high school student for a year (with or without tuition help).
Here is how it works. You choose one (or more) needy student to sponsor for a year or more, and send the donation to HEF. We will give the money to the sponsored student and inform him/her of your support. We will report his/her progress to you. If you like, you are more than welcome to be in direct contact with him/her.
Again your help is greatly appreciated and will make a huge impact on the needy young lives. If you have any question, please feel free to contact me at thyang@math.wisc.edu or (608) 263-4219.