Fund 1000 Scholarships in Rural China for a Year

Back in 1994, when Ms. Chang, the founder of SOAR FOUNDATION went to China for a business trip, she saw a group of homeless teenagers running around in Guangzhou train station. Ms. Chang was shocked and decided to help them to go back to school. Then she went back to the states and the idea was encouraged by several of her friends. So in 1995, Ms. Chang donated $100,000 as the first scholarship fund and founded SOAR FOUNDATION in San Francisco. In the first year, SOAR provided scholarships to 261 students. 

During the 26 years, SOAR helped more than fourteen thousand students with more than thirty-four thousand scholarships. As a non-profit organization, SOAR is currently based in Fremont, CA, with more than fifty volunteers. Many SOAR alumni also joined our volunteer group and became donors. They’ve been wanting to help current students just like SOAR helped them. 

Mr. S graduated from Tsinghua University and is currently doing cancer research in the states. He is currently a volunteer and a donor of SOAR. 

Ms. T was an orphan from a small village in Inner Mongolia. Thanks to SOAR, she is currently living in Beijing with her loving husband and two adorable kids. Ms. T is also the chief volunteer in SOAR Beijing office. 

Mr. H, from a mountain village in Yunnan province, whose parents have been handicaped since he was a kid, received SOAR scholarships for six years. He earned a BS and a MS degree from Beijing Institute of Technology. Currently works at Kunming Branch of People’s Bank of China. (Kunming is the capital of Yunnan province)

Ms. L was a minority student of Miao in a poor mountain village in Guizhou Province. Currently she’s an elementary school teacher back in her hometown. Ms. L called herself the daughter of SOAR. 

Mr. Z, from a village in Hunan province, his hometown has a nickname called “the impoverished mountain-top village”. Currently he’s doing his PhD study in Tokyo University, Japan. 

Mr. ZJ, an orphan, and grew up with his grandma, currently works as an early education consultant. He also met his wife, who used to be a SOAR student too. Now the family of four live happily in Beijing.  

Ms.W, from a single parent family in a village in Henan province. Currently working as a QA engineer in Beijing with her husband and baby.

Above are just a few examples of SOAR students. For 26 years, SOAR FOUNDATION has kept its promise to donors, “every penny of the donated scholarship went to the students.” Special thanks to our SOAR donors, because of all of you, together we changed thousands of lives. 

On November 30th, GlobalGiving will have its annual Giving Tuesday Campaign. Same as last year, GlobalGiving will provide a one million US Dollars incentive fund to all eligible NPOs. 

GlobalGiving’s 2021 #GivingTuesday campaign will last 24 hours, from 00:00:00 EST to 23:59:59 EST on November 30, 2021.

Each participant’s portion of the Incentive Fund is determined as follows: [Total Eligible Project Donations] ÷ [Total Donations To All Projects in the campaign] * [$1,000,000 USD] ≈ Your portion of the Incentive Fund 

Donations up to $2,500 USD per unique donor per organization will be eligible to receive Incentive Funds.

Hope to see you on Giving Tuesday on GlobalGiving and help SOAR to earn some incentive fund! Your kind efforts could make double/triple or even more impact this Novermber 30th! 

Wish everyone a very happy holiday season of 2021!

Take care and stay safe in the pandemic. 

Warmest wishes,

Dawn Luo

Fundraising Committee Chair

SOAR FOUNDATION