The Second Sichuan Earthquake, April 21, 2013

An earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale struck south-western Sichuan, China on April 21, 2013 and the number of victims is rising. Already, almost 200 people have been killed and many more are still missing. About 6,700 people are injured and the conditions are grim. Hauntingly enough, Sichuan is exactly the place where the 2008 Great Sichuan Earthquake occurred five years ago, which measured 8.0 on the Richter scale.

It's a cruel twist of fate that the same victims of the previous natural disaster must once again face the horrors of this seconds devastating one. Tens of thousands of people have no place to stay and no food to eat and are barely baring through each night. The response of the government has been helpful but the majority of the people are still struggling for basic necessities like food and clean water. They are in need of aid, so we must come together to help these victims. Please donate or organize activities to help them. We are contacting local organizations and would like to visit the kids in the affected area this summer and send/bring aid to those in need.

Child Hunger Initiative - Food Drive, March 18th – April 30th

We're part of the GenerationOn's initiative "What Will You Bring to The Table" to donate 1 million meals to hungry kids.

Almost 17 million kids in the United States experience hunger at some point each year. That's more than the combined populations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
We can do better. You can help.
We are asking kids and teens to address child hunger in the United States and around the world.
For more information about how you can help tackle child hunger go to:  www.whatwillyoubringtothetable.org.  

Family Volunteer Day Nov 17

Thanks to GenerationOn's Club grant, we've organized Emergency Preparation & Helping Sandy victim activities on Nov 16-17 at the Learning Skool-House Afterschool and worked with about 50 elementary students on the projects.

Workshops in China

In the summer of 2012, We Care Act co-founder and president Sharon Li traveled to Changsha, Hunan and Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China and conducted a series of 4 English workshops to elementary, high school, and college students. She created a simple book MY LIFE IN AMERICA as her teaching material and it is well liked by the students and teachers. When she visited a village in Changting, Changsha, the students and teachers especially loved her leading them read the book to feel the native sound of English, because the English teacher in the village would like her students to feel how beautiful the language is when speaking properly since she herself did not obtain training in English but in Chinese. In addition, Sharon created newsletters for higher level students and exchanged ideas with them and also introduced We Care Act and servicing learning to the students and teachers she met. Through the workshops, she met students and started to mentor them through digital communications and created a mentoring program to connect students in China and in the US

Make Your Mark Week, October 16-22

What is your passion? How would you make a difference in our world? Please let your passion lead you to help our community during the Make Your Mark Week (October 16-22) (http://kidsvolunteer.generationon.org/) . As one of the 200 Make Your Mark mini-grant winners, We Care Act (www.wecareact.org) is proud to be part of this national movement. We would like to encourage youth to help promote community services and to organize and/or participate in service projects.

Our project for this week is collecting and sending stuffed animals to tornado victims in Joplin, Missouri.

Please donate your gently used stuffed animals to young tornado victims at Joplin, Missouri. Thanks to the GenerationOn Make Your Mark grant, we will ship the stuffed animals to the children before Christmas.
There were 7,000 homes destroyed by the disaster. We would like to have something for the children of these families when they move into their new homes during Christmas time -- Chris Colton, Director, the City of Joplin Parks & Recreation Department

Letters To Japan

We have received a total of 6619 items including 5022 letters/cards and 1579 origami cranes from students/teachers in 135 schools/organizations from 16 countries/self governance regions: the US, Canada, China, Haiti, Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, France, Germany, Russia, Philippines, Spain, Norfork Island, and Taiwan (updated on 9/3/2012).

Thank you to all who mailed us letters or submitted them online. And thank you to our many friends in Japan and in the US who have been making great efforts to connect us to schools and students in Japan, and/or delivere letters to schools, especially Mr. Bert (高橋 亮) of Iwate, Japan and the many students at his "SPEAK UP English Language School " in Hanamaki. The students have deligiently translated many of the letters to Japanese and delivered them to elementary school students. The letters/cards have been delivered to the following schools and regions: coast cities Junior High School Otsuchi Junior High School and Kirikiri junior high school in Otsuchi Town, Iwate, Kamaishi Elementary School in Kamaishi, Iwate, and families and students in the hard hit area Sendai. We are in the process of identifying more schools and students to send more letters there. Please let us know if you or you know someone else who could help.

We would like to thank the following friends, individuals and/or organizations who have helped us to get in touch or have personally delivered the letters to the students in Japan: Mr. Bert (高橋 亮) of Iwate, Japan, Mr. Tucker Harding of Columbia University, New York City, New York, USA, Dr. Kanoelani Pilobello, New York University, New York City, New York, USA, Ms. Megumi Nakagawa of Otsuchi Junior High School, Otsuchi, Iwate, Japan, Mr. Masakatsu Takahashi of Hanamaki and the Hanamaki Board of School Principals, Ms. Muyun Huang, Texas A&M Kingsville, Texas, USA, Dr. Noboru Yanagida of Kanagawa, Japan, Dr. Rio Ogawa of Fukui, Japan, Ms. Aimee Kang of Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA, and Mr. Ryan Pauley at the Consulate-General of Japan at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

For more details and updates about our letter to Japan project, please click here

Help Youth Service America Win Chase Community Giving Challenge (Voting ends May 25th and through face book)

Narrowed down from hundreds of thousands of charities competing in the Chase Community Giving Challenge, YSA placed in the Top 100 of Round One securing $25,000, and is now competing in the second and final round of voting. Vote for YSA at http://bit.ly/ixf1ZP or learn more at www.YSA.org/vote

Youth Service America has helped We Care Act tremendously through awarding grant funding and providing resources and other help. YSA president Mr. Steven Culbertson is on our advisory board and he and his YSA team continue to guide us through our development and expansion. In addition, YSA empowers millions of youth world-wide to do community services. By supporting Youth Service America and helping it obtain additional funds, we are empowering them to do more fantastic work.

Our first 305 letters/cards are on the way to Japan! We are very excited and absolutly grateful to Mr. Bert (高橋 亮) of Iwate, Japan who has been diligently working on contacting schools and teachers for us and finally located the schools ready to receive letters. Thank you, Bert!
We sincerely appreciate Mr. Tucker Harding, a doctoral student of Columbia University, who kindly offered to take three packages of letters/cards with him when he travels to Japan. He will distribute one package of letters (50) directly to the families in the hardest hit area Sendai where he is on a mission, and mail two packages (255) to Mr. Bert at Iwate who will then personally deliver the letters/cards to the coast city Junior High School students (Otsuchi Junior High School in Otsuchi Town). Thanks, Mr. Bert and Tucker!
A giant Thank You to Ms. Kanoelani Pilobello, a doctoral student at New York Univeristy who connected us to her friend Bert in Japan and her college classmate Tucker at Columbia University. Thank you, Lani!
We would also like to thank Ms. Muyun Huang, a freshman at Texas A&M Kingsville University, who took the above mentioned packages of letters to New York City and personally delivered to Mr. Tucker Harding!
Thank you all so much for your great help!

Thank you to all who mailed us letters or submitted them online. We have received a total of 2353 letters/cards from students/teachers in 83 schools/organizations from 10 countries: the US, Canada, China, Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, France, and Germany (updated 5/20/2011). For more details and updates about our letter to Japan project, please click here

FREE SAT & ACT Test Prep Software is DONATED to We Care Act Members and Network by eKnowledge
eKnowledge has partnered with We Care Act to donate their SAT and ACT preparation programs to all of our members and network. The eKnowledge partnership waives the complete $200 retail price for the donated SAT or ACT Test Prep Program. Users pay a nominal charge of $13.84 per standard program for the cost of materials, support, and registration (plus $3.71 s/h). Each program contains video lessons, hundreds of practice questions with detailed explanations, quizzes, and class work. PowerPrep features test prep content in a highly personalized, student-centered, virtual learning environment. To order, please visit here..

Letters to Japan Updates

Global Youth Service Day April 15-17, 2011
We Care Act invites you to write letters to Japan's earthquake victims (elementary to high school students)
For online submitting or mailing your letters, please click here. For Complete list of schools/organizations we received letters from, please click here.

Thank you, teachers and students, for making the beautiful cards and writing the inspirational letters and mailing to our organization and to those who submitted online. Thanks for your hardwork and caring. We continue to receive letters/cards and will appreciate it if you could tell your friends and family to help write letters too. There are total 100,000 children affected by the disasters in Japan and we would like to send as many letters as we could collect to the victims. Please click here to view some responses we have received from around the world. Thank you, everyone! For your encouragement and support!

Update from Japan:

Thank you so much for your concern,
I just received email from Japanese base manager in Narita.
Many flight attendant has being bringing the items to donate, like rice, flash lights, soaps etc.
They told us we have to slow down those donations, they can not find the way to deliver them because of the gas shortage.
Just to let you know the update. We collected some donations on our flight and we have the way to give the money but anything else seems so hard to get to them. They found 10,000 people dead but 14,000 bodies missing.
They are still spending so much effort for recovering the body. We also have 6 nuclear power plant effected by the earthquake and
tyring to save 4, which mean we may have a problem with radiation.
I hope we can rebuilt the country soon.
Every time when I go to Japan, I have to bring my own food to eat there and back on the airplane.
We do not take shower, use bottled water at the hotel to brush our teeth and for all the hot drink.
Even Narita is not so sure about the contamination of water, food and air. Very sad.
Please give the information to the children.
Thank you
Kinue (flight attendant)
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 1:33 AM

For those of you who are intereted in making cards with pictures, please see message below from a friend who grew up in Japan but lives in the US now:
I've given it some thought, but I don't think there is a specific animal associated with hope in Japan. Sometimes in stores and restaurants, "maneki-neko" is displayed, which is a cat that is supposed to bring good luck by drawing in customers, but of course that is not relevant to a natural disaster. Cranes are more of a symbol of good health and longevity. If you make cranes by folding paper as in "origami", that would be appropriate to send as it is a message of wishing quick recovery. ..... My suggestion is that if you want to send drawings to children, anything related to cartoons will be appreciated. Japanese kids love "anime". I think that American cartoon characters would be nice (Disney, Pixar) because that would be special to the kids; after all, it is American kids who took the time to send them something. Take care and thanks,
-- Naomi

Seeing the real situation of a coastal town, Sanriku, I just lost words.
Of course I've been watching the reports on TV, but it is completely different to what I was imagining...
I brought a camera with me, but it was so shocking to me that I couldn't take any pictures.
The relief was the people there had begun clearing debris or fixing their aquaculture pools cooperated by the Self Defence Force or volunteers.
On the day I visited there, I was so busy helping the relatives of my workmate's wife that I didn't have time to visit the local council to get any information about schools there.
So I've been collecting information about it in my hometown afterword.
All the high schools will be open at the middle of this month, which means it is two weeks behind the original plan.
As for junior high schools or primary schools, their reopening will be at the end of this month or the beginning of May, I think. -- 高橋
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2011 7:34 PM

----
I'm so impressed with your kind words and concerns for the victims of this disaster.
I live in Hanamaki in Iwate Prefecture. Hanamaki is a city in inland which is about 60 miles away from the coast. Water and power supply problem occurred on the day but recovered within a few days.
Compared with the cities on the coast, here is like a paradise, I should say. Except shortage of things such as petrol or groceries, everything seems to be same as usual.
I personally have some friends who are junior high school teachers. In Japan, teenagers between 13 and 15 go to junior high school.
... I asked a teacher in the primary school where my daughters go to. He has some friends there [in the disaster areas] but he hasn't been able to contact with many of them yet... it's been two weeks since the event, but their condition is still terrible... they get food or some other things necessary by Self Defence Force or organisations such as Red Cross, but the infrastructure there is totally demolished, so there is general communication problem...some cities have only 10 or less temporary telephone lines there, carriers of mobile phones have set up temporary aerials but the number is limited. I haven't been able to contact with friends there yet...
In addition to that, most schools have become the evacuation centres (shelters) of communities and are full of victims in there.
Since our school year is between April and March, it's the spring break now, a preparation term for the next school year, but due to the condition I mentioned above, no one knows what will happen with students there yet... The Prefectural Board of Education hasn't announced what to do with them yet...
From: -- 高橋 Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 9:03 PM

*****
Thanks for the overwhelming responses from students, teachers, and others since this project was posted. There are now students/schools in 20 US states, Canada, and China who are in the process of creating cards or writing letters.

Currently, we in the process of locating individual schools to send the letters and are making every effort to get the letters/cards to the students in Japan as soon as possible. The conditions of the hardest-hit areas of Japan are still critical, and we were told that most schools are still closed and transportation to those areas is very difficult. However, when the students can receive them, they will definitely be sent out. Updates will be posted when become available. Thanks again to everyone for taking actions to help the disaster victims.

* * * *

Do you remember how it felt when you were young? How it felt to be invincible, like all the world was in front of you? The endless possibilities that lay ahead.

...The students in Japan may have lost that hope.

We Care Act is launching a new project--Letters to Japan, where kids write letters to kids in Japan in order to boost morale and return the hope that's been lost since the earthquake and tsunami that struck the island country on March 11th, 2011. We'd prefer it if you handwrote your letters and mailed them to us, but if you can't, you can also submit your letter here.

We are working with individuals and the Consulate-General of Japan in Houston to get the letters to the students in Japan. We were told that high school and middle school students in Japan should be able to read English while elementary students will enjoy cards more.

For mailing purposes:

We Care Act
2722 Garden Falls Dr.
Manvel, TX 77578

For questions or further information, please contact letterstojapan@wecareact.org.

Gift Care Basket

Through the holiday season, We Care Act collaborated with the Learning Skool-House Afterschool and Mrs. Medley and Ms. Issac’s classes at Massey Ranch Elementary School of Pearland for the gift care basket project.

Together we collected 56 new toys/stuff animals and made over 40 personalized greeting cards for the children at the Texas Children’s Hospital. We Care Act leaders Grace Li and Sharon Li, Alexander Miao, Muyun Huang and Justin Lerderman, delivered the gifts to the hospital. In addition, We Care Act donated 112 items of toys, books, and daily products to the Ronald MacDonald House in Houston for families with children on their journey to overcome a critical childhood illness. Surely, we are making some of the children smile. Thank you, team leaders and students for your hard work! Thank you, teachers and parents for your help and generous donations!

Archived News & Updates & Grant Opportunities

Volume II-V May 2011

Volume II-I January 2011

Volume I-V December 2010

Volume I-IV November 2010

Volume I-III October 2010

Volume I-II September 2010

Volume I-I August 2010

Earthquake Act

Hurricane Act