安华彩虹计划每年给中国境内十来个学校小额捐款，一直是通过支票。因为捐款额先对较小，西联等方式汇款的手续费占去捐款的比例相对就高。我们一直在寻找更合适的手段，尽可能地把安华社区学生、家长以及其他支持我们的朋友们的捐款用在刀刃上，让那些接受捐款的学生们受益，而不是耗费在中间过程上。支票相对来说简单，手续费基本上只是国内银行在美元兑换人民币的过程中收一笔手续费，幸运的时候，比如通过我退休的父母寄给江西广桥小学的捐款，有一次还得到当地银行免受手续费的优待 -- 因为我父亲告诉银行的工作人员那笔钱是捐给小学校学生的。但是寄支票也有风险，我们曾经有连续两次支票在通过邮局投递过程中丢失。用挂号寄过一次，时间长，而且美国邮政到中国的挂号收费十几美元。
通过多次比较，发现网中国寄钱最快捷、便宜的方法似乎是住在纽约的亲戚通过他们的在中国银行的帐号向国内转账。所以起了念头要给安华彩虹计划在中国银行纽约分行申请一个帐号，以方便给国内捐款。本来以为现在这种网络通讯无所不达的时代，这应该是一件易如反掌的事，没想到遇上管办的中国银行，却远不是那么回事。
通过电子邮件与 BoC 联络，告诉了他们我们的想法，回信要我们的非盈利机构的证明。给他们电邮了我们中文学校在联邦政府注册的文件，之后却如石沉大海，再三问讯的邮件都好像进入了网络空间的黑洞。给他们打去电话询问，电话里一位女士说给我电邮帐号申请表格。放下电话，却又是杳无音讯。
看来跟中国银行打交道，还得有倒退三十年那时候的耐性。
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
6. 眼见为实
安华中文学校的彩虹计划每年捐助不少中国穷孩子上学。但是，对多数人 -- 哪怕是给彩虹计划捐款的学生和家长 -- 来说，那些孩子生活在里我们遥远的地球另一边，他们的生活到底是什么样子，我们其实都只有很模糊的概念：穷、贫困，上不起学，甚至吃不饱饭。
所以我在这里推荐我们彩虹计划成员之一的一家人今年暑期的实地见闻：《在那遥遠的地方 - 探望彩虹孩子的家鄉》。
不过，说实话，文中图片里孩子们的境况比我想象的还稍好一点。不知道是不是刻意修饰，为了迎接远道而来的客人。
这些记录，让我们的捐助变得稍稍真实一些。
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Thursday, September 16, 2010
4. AHRP on Flickr
I have created a Google Gadget that one may use to display photos from Flickr.com in a slide show fashion. What started me on this gadget is my need to display photos that I and other on the Ann-Hua Rainbow Project team has taken over the years on the project's website. The problem is that there have been so many of those photos that it is difficult to put them in one by one.
Flickr is an easy to use photo-sharing web service that allows one to create an account free of charge, with a limitation of 200 photos shown on the account's Flirkr page and some amount of uploads per month. If one hits that limit, like I do, there is an option to go Pro at $24.00 per year.
What this gadget does can be seen on the side of this blog under the title AHRP on Flickr. It is a mini slide show of all photos on Flickr with the tag AHRP. One may limit the set of photos to show using a combination of a group (I created a group on Flickr called AHCS to collect all photos related to the Ann-Hua Chinese School -- Group ID: 1228870@N23 -- for example) and more tags. For example, one may specify the gadget to show only photos with students in them using tags AHRP,Student -- The gadget will then select only photos tagged with both AHRP and Student.
Now, a brief on the gadget itself: It is called flickr-show (click on the link takes one to the project page on Google Code). One may use it on Google Sites, Blogger, or any other web site that allows embedded objects and JavaScript. However, I don't know what it takes for a gadget to get on to Google's listing, so the easiest way to use flickr-show for now is to specify it by URL to the code:
On Google Sites, to add this gadget in a page, one do Insert » More gadgets ... » Add gadget by URL and then enter the URL given above. Then a configuration dialog will pop up to allow one to specify the things I have discussed above.
The rest should be easy if you know how Flickr works in terms of photo-sharing. The only thing missing from general Flickr issues is the API Key that the gadget asks. Well, that is a way for one to keep some privacy on Flickr while sharing with the world. If you don't know how to get an API key from Flickr, you may use the one I acquired for my experiments with flickr-show:
Flickr is an easy to use photo-sharing web service that allows one to create an account free of charge, with a limitation of 200 photos shown on the account's Flirkr page and some amount of uploads per month. If one hits that limit, like I do, there is an option to go Pro at $24.00 per year.
What this gadget does can be seen on the side of this blog under the title AHRP on Flickr. It is a mini slide show of all photos on Flickr with the tag AHRP. One may limit the set of photos to show using a combination of a group (I created a group on Flickr called AHCS to collect all photos related to the Ann-Hua Chinese School -- Group ID: 1228870@N23 -- for example) and more tags. For example, one may specify the gadget to show only photos with students in them using tags AHRP,Student -- The gadget will then select only photos tagged with both AHRP and Student.
Now, a brief on the gadget itself: It is called flickr-show (click on the link takes one to the project page on Google Code). One may use it on Google Sites, Blogger, or any other web site that allows embedded objects and JavaScript. However, I don't know what it takes for a gadget to get on to Google's listing, so the easiest way to use flickr-show for now is to specify it by URL to the code:
http://flickr-show.googlecode.com/svn/branches/1.1/flickr-show.xmlAs one can see, the version is 1.0 so there are known bugs and I am working on improvements.
On Google Sites, to add this gadget in a page, one do Insert » More gadgets ... » Add gadget by URL and then enter the URL given above. Then a configuration dialog will pop up to allow one to specify the things I have discussed above.
The rest should be easy if you know how Flickr works in terms of photo-sharing. The only thing missing from general Flickr issues is the API Key that the gadget asks. Well, that is a way for one to keep some privacy on Flickr while sharing with the world. If you don't know how to get an API key from Flickr, you may use the one I acquired for my experiments with flickr-show:
2961840042dccf8323bc6060dbd24a0bThat's all for now, until I have updates on the flickr-show project.
Monday, September 13, 2010
3. 安华彩虹计划又一年
秋夏之交，新学年伊始，我们的孩子们回到学校，回到教室。此时，各位家长大约会松一口气，很高兴我们的孩子们终于又开学了，不用再一边忙着上班，一边还要开车拉着他们这儿跑、那儿颠，去这样那样的活动。
新学年开始，也是我们安华彩虹计划 (http://rainbow.annhua.org/) 新一年募捐、捐助活动的开始。每年这个时候，安华中文学校 (http://annhua.org/) 的管理团队会在中文学校借用的密西根大学工学院教室的走廊里，忙着给学生注册、发书，给初次来上课的学生、家长找教室，给上课的老师们复印资料，不亦乐乎。安华彩虹计划的志愿者也会在学校工作人员值班的桌子一旁设置一个岗位，向大家介绍我们的活动，希望继续得到学生、家长的关注和支持。
行文至此，安华彩虹计划全体志愿者要向安华的学生、家长以及其他一直关注支持这项活动的人致以最诚挚的问候和谢意。谢谢你们过去一年中对安华彩虹计划的支持，你们的捐款通过安华彩虹计划已经直接资助了 148 名贫困学生，他们远在中国许多乡村和偏远之地，从江西到云南，从四川到青海。
此刻我们还要记住远在中国的那 148 位孩子仍然需要我们的援手，扶助他们继续他们艰难的路程，继续获得最基本的教育。在新学年开始之际，希望我们大家以心中无限的温暖和手里有限的捐助，给那些同样美丽、同样天真、同样好奇的孩子们送去一些希望。
安华彩虹计划的志愿者将于九月（十二、十九、二十六日）和十月（三日）的四个周末校日在中文学校与大家交流，接受捐款。我们期盼家长们能够抽五分钟的时间走进中文学校的走廊，来了解我们的活动。我们也欢迎无法亲自前来的家长随时与我们的志愿者联系：
Ms. Xiaohong Chen | 陈小虹 | xiaohong_chen@hotmail.com | (734) 623-9604 |
Ms. Tsu Cheng | 钟素粧 | tsuccheng@gmail.com | (734) 973-9539 (734) 239-5730 |
Ms. Mengdan Chu | 储梦丹 | acer_rocks@yahoo.com | (734) 222-8510 |
Ms. Hong Jiang | 江虹 | jhong5@yahoo.com | (734) 495-9122 |
Mr. Jiang Jiang | 江江 | jiangj56@hotmail.com | (734) 418-0558 |
Ms. Ying Pei | 裴颖 | ying_pei@hotmail.com | (734) 717-9958 |
Mr. Wei Wang | 王伟 | ww@9rivers.com | (734) 418-8385 |
Ms. Qi Wu | 吴琪 | angel_11735@yahoo.com | (734) 327-9528 (734) 255-0567 |
Mr. Jianming Xiang | 向建明 | jmxxdrnx@umich.edu | (734) 332-0701 |
安华彩虹计划作为安华中文学校非营利机构的一部分，向安华彩虹计划的捐款享受免税。从 1998 年开始，安华彩虹计划与所捐助的学校、学生保持直接联系，保持了捐款零消耗 -- 工作人员均为志愿者，捐款全部完全用于资助中国的学生和学校。这些年来，尽管我们能够给予每一位受捐助学生的帮助有限，我们希望我们的行动能够鼓励那些学生继续他们的学习，而不是被生活的重担压迫而过早地放弃受教育的梦想。
借此机会我们还希望向大家介绍安华彩虹计划的“学生行动小组”。这个小组的成员都是一些热诚的年轻人，他们长期积极参与安华彩虹计划的各项活动，为资助中国 贫困学生做出了成绩，细节请参见网页：http://rainbow.annhua.org/team-ahrp/student-team。我们希望通过表彰学生行动小组成员们所付出的努力和做出的贡献，鼓励更多的年轻一代参与，这也是安华彩虹计划的另一个目的。安华的学生许多已经进入高中学习，参与社会活动是他们高中阶段必修的一项。参与安华的活动，我们的学生从中所得到的锻炼和成就实际上要超过中国那些贫困学生所得捐助的意义。
1. About This Blog
Ann-Hua Rainbow Project is a charitable program that I volunteer to help at the Ann-Hua Chinese School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was started in 1998 by a then AHCS parent. The program has since provided some tens of thousands of US dollars to over a thousand students in rural China, some in quite remote areas.
I have been with the program for many years. I have written a few small articles here and there. I decide to start this blog as a personal account of what has been done, the support we have received from the community, and also, what the students of AHCS have been able to gain from participating in the AHRP program to support their counterparts in China, as well as other outside-of-AHRP but related things.
I invite you to join me in supporting the AHRP, cheer on the volunteers, and encourage your students to participate. As the saying goes, "It takes a village..."
[Update] How to Join this Blog
I have been with the program for many years. I have written a few small articles here and there. I decide to start this blog as a personal account of what has been done, the support we have received from the community, and also, what the students of AHCS have been able to gain from participating in the AHRP program to support their counterparts in China, as well as other outside-of-AHRP but related things.
I invite you to join me in supporting the AHRP, cheer on the volunteers, and encourage your students to participate. As the saying goes, "It takes a village..."
[Update] How to Join this Blog
- You need to be a Blogger -- meaning you need to have an account on Blogger.com, which is really a Google account;
- Send me an email to let me know who you are (if I don't know you already) and why you are interested in joining this blog;
- I will remain the owner of this blog, which means if I don't like you for some reason, then tough! Otherwise, you will get an email notification. You can then start writing and posting on this blog.
- This blog is dedicated to the Ann-Hua Rainbow Project. I retain the rights to remove you as a co-author on this blog if you write anything deemed irrelevant or offensive by me.
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