As most people know, CTEF is a Seattle based non-profit organization and most of volunteers are based in US. However, a significant part of our operation is in China, and we are counting on our hard working local volunteers and many other NGO partners.

I start to deeply appreciate our local volunteers' work when we start the "5.12 letter project".  This is a project intended to get more people involved to help the kids affected by 5.12 Sichuan earthquake. This project is later developed into a dedicated scholarship project. When it is initiated, we drafted a two-page background information survey and personal information disclosure form.  I naively thought this is a big part of job done.

However, I did not realize at the time that the majority of our audience in China do not understand the reason why we need further information after two years and what kind of information we need. Further, they did not fully understand "personal information disclosure" clause.  Thanks goes to our volunteer, Fang Fang. She called each of the 150 students. She explained to them why we need to collect more background information, patiently communicates what the new project is about and describes the implication for the personal information disclosure. She then coordinated collection of our two-page survey form to the students. She went extra step to go through all the letters,  read, and summarized each letter. This makes our work much easier. She further compiled an excel spreadsheet of student data.  In fact, Fang has been working with us for a long long time already on many different projects.

I never realized such a small step in a project can mean so much work...We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude... Thank you, Fang Fang and many other volunteers that help us to this date!