I went to Sichuan Province at the end of August 2006. It wasn't my special trip to interview and learn charity work there, but it indeed left me a deep impression. I could not help talking charity with Sichuan people and finding out the position of charity in their hearts.

I never contacted Sichuan charity work directly before this visit. Charity magazine had published an article about how successfully the Sichuan Charity Conference& the High-Level Forum about the Development of Charity in Sichuan Province, 2005 was held. I affirmed that I would participate in this important conference with President Fan Baojun if I were not on my business trip in the country suffered from tsunami. I looked through the whole materials of the conference carefully later on and got more information from my colleagues who knew more about charity development in Sichuan Province. I think the conference would effectively promote the charity development and set a good example not only for Sichuan Province but also for other areas throughout China. The conference had very strong vitality and its ideal and responsibility were very concrete, which made people obviously feel the great strength of communication. Sichuan people had done lots of meaningful and effective charitable activities during and before the charity conference. After the conference these activities would be expanded widely and developed deeply. The strength and influence of charity I experienced 8 months after the conference in Sichuan Province had great relationship with the function of this charity conference.

"Charity here? I see. It is excellent, furthermore, it indeed gives a great help to poor people"

"In Sichuan Province charity is extensively known and understood by more and more people, because lots of people benefited from it. We can see and hear lots of news about charity through newspaper, TV station and people's conversation."

"I donated money to them before, so did he. All of us trust this charity organization, otherwise, we won't donate money to them"

"Sichuan Charity Association is initiating Helping Poor Students Project associating with other organizations. It is really a good project!"

When I was in Sichuan Province, I talked about Sichuan Charity Association and the charitable work they did with nearly 20 people, whom I know or not. All of them knew Sichuan Charity Association and gave a high commendation to it. Whenever I heard these commendations, sincerities with warm would well up from the bottom of my heart just like a kind of inspiring with piquancy of Sichuan feature.

One morning, when I visited Sichuan Charity Association, I found several young people were busy with their work: handling computers, arraying data and making phone calls to deal with businesses. Such a clean, neat, busy and orderly working scene! I did not see any people that I know, so I went into the next office. I saw 2 women working there: one I met in China Charity Federation before was doing some accounting works and the other one's name was Zhang Lijuan. Though I never saw Zhang Lijuan before, I was familiar with her name because she contacted frequently with our magazine. They hosted me hospitably. Zhang Lijuan answered some of my questions and helped me to find more information about their charity work though our conversation was frequently interrupted by many phone calls.

I looked around their office when they were answering phone calls. A pile of files, which were put on a big quadrate meeting table, attracted my attention. I found they were all the name lists of poor students who would get help from the Helping Poor Students Project and those students were from all areas of Sichuan Province. The files contained comprehensive information of every student. I thought I should know more details about this project and it would be very nice if the secretary-general were here now.

Yang Xiuhua, secretary-general of Sichuan Charity Association, was dealing with business in the junior charity association. Do they have the Helping Poor Students Project too? I knew urban basic units were different with provincial basic units, because conditions of the latter were harder than the former one. We could see that the secretary-general preferred to go to the areas with the hardest conditions.

I talked with Zhang Lijuan again. A young man, tall, long-faced, beetle-browned, student's looked and wearing a T-shirt came into the office when we were talking. He was familiar with the 2 staffs here, so he asked us to continue our conversation and he could wait for them. He read in front of the window. It seemed that he felt so unselfconscious just as stayed in his own home. I heard that the young man was the student of Chengdu University, who got financial help from Sichuan Charity Association to continue his study. He was from a poor family, his mother was disabled and father was severely ill without any ability to move around. When he was enrolled by Chendu University, the whole family was so anxious about his tuition fee because they cannot afford it. When Sichuan Charity Association knew his story, they helped him to find a sponsor who totally donated 20,000RMB to him in 4 years (5000RMB/per year). With the financial help, he successfully finished his study. Now he had a close relationship with Sichuan Charity Association and attended lots of charitable activities.

When I would like to ask more about the young guy, I saw a little boy with a big package came into the office and smiled to these staffs. The boy went to the corner directly where a lot of goods were put, it seemed that he knew this office very well. Zhang Lijuan followed him. I found that the purpose of his visit was to donate clothes. When he left we still could see smiles on his face. I heard from the staffs that in the beginning, what the boy donated were all from his family, subsequently, he started to persuade his friends, relatives to donate their clothes with good quality and take them to charity organization frequently. The boy just entered into high school, what's more important was that he insisted on collecting clothes after school for 1 year. 4 days later, I visited Sichuan Charity Association again. They told me that the boy donated again and sent us an article named, which was composed for magazine. I was astounded by what I saw and what I heard, but later I felt so happy. I remembered that when I was a young boy, what I thought was just how to play with my friends and what we could play with. Compared to this boy, I think he was so great and we could learn a lot from him.

From the 2 students I met unconsciously in Sichuan Charity Association, I truly felt the position of charity in Sichuan people's heart and how excellent the charity was in their mind. To be honest, my feeling now was much more comfortable, satisfactory and pleased than enjoying the beautiful scenery.

When I met Secretary-General Yang Xiuhua, it was my second visit to Sichuan Charity Association. In the beginning I supposed it was a woman from the meaning of the name. Later on we met each other several times when we participated in national charity conferences, but never talked. Yang Xiuhua was a sober and self-possessed man, but not the kind of lively person. From the conversation, I obviously felt that he knew everything about charity of Sichuan province; no matter it was big or small, such as the actuality and history. He was practical and realistic to all social problems and other issues regarding to charity and had an apropos attitude to analyze and deal with those problems.

Secretary-General Yang Xiuhua especially introduced "Charity in Sichuan•Helping Poor Students with Welfare Lottery Project" to me. The project, which had been carried out for 2 years, achieved an outstanding development compared to the last year. When they schemed this project at the beginning of this year, they made a decision that no student would drop out his/her study because of poverty. The slogan of this project is "Let the dream fly away to hold up Sichuan people's hope of tomorrow." Sichuan Charity Association had united Sichuan Provincial Education Department, China Communist Youth League Sichuan Committee, Welfare Lottery Issuing Center of Sichuan Province and many major medias to participate in the project. It had such a great momentum and impact. Because of the hard work and the extensive and profound propaganda, the project has got energetically support from the whole society and government leaders at all levels of the whole province, got positive responses from common people, enterprises and institutions. When the project started, the first individual donor was an old man unwilling to receive an interview. Later on the personal donors, as this old man, of different ages and different professions were emerging constantly just as the bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Enterprises in Sichuan Province were very positive to this large-scale project. Some enterprises not only donated money under the name of the whole units but also launched its employees to offer love. For example, workers from the system of Sichuan Bank offered 570,000RMB. Sichuan Charity Association raised the fund of more than 30 million RMB in total, 120,00 poor students benefited from the Helping Poor Students Project and did not lose the chance to go to school because of poverty.

Listening to this figure and the introduction given by Secretary-General Yang, I felt very inspiring. I thought one activity of giving financial aid to students could succor over ten thousand poor students; it might be still rare in the whole country at present. This was the charitable achievement of Sichuan, and also the achievement of the whole country's charity cause..

　　I was hearing and thinking. The piles of name lists on the quadrate meeting desk always appeared before my eyes.