Hometown
Education
Foundation
Why
you can trust
us
Trust is always a
problem
for an unknown or little known new charitable organization. How could
you trust
on a new organization? I understand that . So I will
introduce
myself and briefly describe why I founded this charitable organization `Hometown
Education Foundation’(HEF), and hope that you will find
that the HEF is a very worthy foundation for your support and
can be
trusted with your donation to financially support the students from
elementary
to high schools in my hometown to continue their basic education and to
become
more productive and knowledgeable individuals. In the long run, we will
earn
your trust by the work we do and open our financial book for your
scrutiny.
I, Dr. Tonghai
Yang,
am a professor at the Department of Mathematics, the University
of Wisconsin
at Madison.
I have a happy family with my lovely wife and two healthy and cute
kids, and
live a good life in Madison, Wisconsin
of the United States.
I work hard and consider myself a decent and serious mathematician and
a very
good teacher (see my math
web page). I have written over 30 research papers
published in Mathematics research journals. I have been invited
to give
professional talks in universities, institutes, and conferences over
the world,
including China,
Canada,
France,
Germany,
Hong Kong, India,
Japan,
Korea,
Taiwan,
The United Kingdom,
and the United States.
I was born in Bao
Mei Village,
Ningguo County, Anhui
Province, China
in 1963. During my middle school and high school years (1974-78), I had
to walk
6 miles twice a week (once a week during the winter) to school and stay
in
school during weekdays. I had to bring with me food to eat and some
other stuff
to sell in the town to get a little money. That was normal in that era,
nothing
to complaint about. Unfortunately, some of the poorest students now
still have
to do the same everyday (since staying in school costs money too while
it used
to be free), although most go to school by bus or bike. That was sad.
In 1978, I was
admitted to
Huizhou Teacher’s Academy (a 2 year community college for middle school
teachers) by passing the 2nd national exams since the Cultural
Revolution, a
year ahead of graduation. Although it was not perfect, I could not wait
to take
this opportunity to leave the countryside to get a better life. After
graduating from the college in 1980, I went to Ban
Qiao Middle school
in a neighboring county---Jin De County (not my choice). Half a year
later, by
luck and persuasion, I was transferred to Hong
Men Middle School
in Ningguo (my home county), although it was a very rural area about 50
miles
from the capital of Ningguo (a very long distance when you don’t have a
car and very poor public transportation). After another a
semester, I was
transferred to Shan Men
Middle School, where I
taught until
I went to graduate school in Anhui
Normal University
in 1984. Please see some pictures I took in the summer of 2002. Shan
Men Middle School
is a better off middle school in my home county.
In 1984, I was admitted
to the
graduate program in Anhui Normal University, studying algebra
under
supervision of Professor Huaiding Tang, and my mathematical
life starts.
In 1987, I graduated with a MS degree in Mathematics and became an
assistant
professor at the University of Science and Technology of China.
In
January 1991, I went to the University of Maryland at College Park
(with
a borrowed $100 in the pocket) for my graduate study. I got my PhD
degree under
the supervision of Professor Stephen Kudla in 1995 and went to
the
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton for a one-year
membership. after
that, I went to the University
of Michigan
at Ann Arbor as
a Hilderbrandt Research Assistant
Professor. In 1998, I became a tenure track assistance professor
at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1999, I visited the Harvard
University as a Centennial Fellow of the American Mathematical
Society. Since
2000, I have been a faculty at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison. I
visited the Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn Germany for
three summers. I also visited a lot of other math institutes around the
world,
including the MSRI at Berkerley, The Morningside
Center of
Mathematics
at Beijing,
the Newton
Math. Institute in Cambridge University of England, The Hong Kong
University of Science and Technology, Kyoto University in Japan,
and The
National Theoretical Center of Science in Taiwan. Please see my math web page
for more
detail on my professional life.
Now why did I found the small charitable organization
Hometown
Education Foundation?
The story started
when I
went back to China
to visit my family during the summer of 2000 after a long ten year
absence. I was very positively surprised by the development in China
and in my hometown. I could not even recognize the Ningguo city which
is much
bigger than before and clearly much more prosperous. People are
generally much
richer than before. One of my brothers has his own small business in
the
Ningguo city, and my mother and older brothers and sisters have moved
to the
city. So did a lot of other people in my village for a better life. The
village
did not change much itself although there is a private bus running
between the
village and the city, which is very nice. Even villagers who stayed in
the
village went out and found some way to make money when the farm work
was not
busy. People were in general in better shape than ten years earlier.
However, at a dinner party, one of
former
colleagues told me a sad and moving story. The father of a high school
student
in Ningguo High
School
had to sell blood monthly to support his education since the mother was
sick
and the father did not have a good skill to support his family. I was
sickened
by the story and tried to help. Luckily, we found out that
a local
banker had offered to sponsor him for the rest of his high school
study. He would
provide his tuition and enough money for his basic need for the
remaining two
years. But the story stuck in my mind. I went back in 2002 and heard
another
moving story. A farmer was behind in his farm tax payment for 2 years.
Two tax
officials went down to the village to demand payment (this farm tax is
in the
form of certain amount of rice). When they showed up they found that
both the
farmer and his wife had been disabled. They did not know what to say.
The
farmer was quite poor, however he did have barely enough rice for the
necessary
payment. Their son, a six grader, overheard the conversation, and
bravely came
out and told the tax collectors that he would take the rice to the
station, and
he would quit his school from now on to support his family. The tax
collectors
were moved and went back to talk about it with their colleagues,
and they
together decided to sponsor this kid for his education. My younger
brother is
right now sponsoring a girl whose mother is sick.
These are happy stories,
at least
with a happy ending for the kids. Others are not so lucky and need your
help
(see Students for a sample of needy
students). Currently there is no institutional program to support
these
needy young kids. There is no government program in my home county
helping the
poor kids, and there is no charitable organization either. One problem
is that
we don't have such a tradition in charity as in the United
States. People are not accustomed to
contributing to charitable organizations, and are generally suspicious
of
organization. We may blame the government and others, but kids could
not wait. That
is why I started this charitable organization, and hope to get your
support to
financially help these young kids to get their very basic elementary
and middle
school education we all take for granted, and their basic high school
education
if they are academically strong enough to get admitted to high school
(a highly
non-trivial achievement for a poor countryside kid). On a personal
level, I
feel that these poor kids could have been me, my kids, or my students
if I were
still in my village. Unfortunate things happen to people without a
reason
sometimes.
Please
trust me that I and other volunteers will use all your donation
directly to the
needy students this charity sets up to help. I will personally cover
all the
overhead. A mere 50 dollars can help a kid (literally a kid)
to
continue his/her elementary for a whole year.
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. Geneva
Cir.
Madison,
WI 53717
USA
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
$50 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.
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.