Share in the Giving of Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival is a time to celebrate the past year's work and to ring in the new year! One very special tradition that is typical during Chinese New Year is the giving of red envelopes or packets filled with money. These red envelopes are called "Hong bao" in Chinese. Children in China love to receive these red envelopes!

Here at Dew Drops Little Flower, our kids love this Chinese New Year tradition too! Would you like to help us give our kids some red envelopes? Here are some ways that you can get involved! 

1.     Post on social media to ask you families and friends to donate money so we can fill our red envelopes

2.    Consider sharing some of your own money that you receive during Chinese New Year to give to the children

Once you've collected the money, you can share it with us and we will fill those red envelopes for all of our 31 children who live here!

We hope that the New Year brings you many blessings and joys. Happy Year of the Rooster from all of us at Dew Drops Little Flower!

We are thankful!

Like Halloween, Thanksgiving is another American holiday that is not celebrated in China.  The children in our school enjoy learning about other countries and cultures and one of their favorite things is to learn about holidays celebrated in other places.  This week they learned about Thanksgiving.

What Thanksgiving celebration would be complete without turkeys?  They didn't get to eat turkey, but they did get to decorate turkeys to take home:

In addition to turkeys, the children traced fall leaves and shared what they are thankful for.

"I am thankful for firemen who put our fires." (We did visit the fire station recently!)

"I am thankful for the bus driver who brings us to school each day."

"I am thankful for the cook who makes our lunch."

"I am thankful for policemen who catch thieves."

We have a lot to be thankful for!  The leaves are now hung in our school to remind us of our many blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Many Thanks Again to the Austrian Embassy!

In February, the Austrian Embassy in Beijing organized and hosted their 5th annual Charity Ski Race. Special guests included the Vice Mayor of Olympic candidate Zhangjiakou Mr. Zhou Limin, Austrian Ambassador Dr. Irene Giner-Reichl and several colleagues from other European embassies, as well as high-ranking managers of Chinese ski resort developers and operators. The embassy had a record year, with over 550 participants, 118 racers from 14 countries, and nearly 600,000 RMB raised!

This year, Little Flower was lucky to have been their benefitting charity. Recently, they held a Garden Party and Handover Ceremony to celebrate the donation of all proceeds to Little Flower.

It was a great night, with Little Flower's founder, Brent Johnson, in attendance. The man behind the Austrian Charity Ski Race, Dr. Oskar Andesner, presented the donation.

He created the very first ski race event in 2010, and it has grown larger every single year. This year is actually his last year organizing the event, and we just wanted to express our appreciation for all the work that he and his team have put into the ski race each year. Three cheers for the Austrian Embassy!

Our Spring Charity Celebration a Success!

Last Saturday, Little Flower--with the help of some amazing people around the Beijing community, local and international sponsors, volunteers, and our staff--held its Spring Charity Celebration, with food, good company, and an auction and raffle featuring some pretty amazing prizes. It was a great way to work with the community, introduce Little Flower to new friends, give out fun prizes, and raise money in the process.

The masterminds behind the event were Jim Zimmerman, a great friend to Little Flower, and founder Brent Johnson. Jim did an amazing job of spearheading the effort to secure some extremely enticing auction and raffle items, including round trip tickets from Beijing to Hawaii, paradise vacations in Mexico, the Phillippines, and Mauritius, and autographed vintage movie posters.

When it came time for the event to come together, even more people pitched in. Little Flower staff helped to set up and work during the evening. Of course, in between all that work, there was also some time for group pictures.

Little Flower Group Homes Manager Ruth and our Curriculum Director Maria were our information table representatives, there to answer any questions that people might have about what we do.

Here was the raffle table. Everyone was excited to try their luck. With the grand prize being a pair of roundtrip tickets on Hawaiian Airlines from Beijing to Honolulu and a stay at the Outrigger Waikiki...you can understand why!

We also had a bunch of silent auction items, including holidays in China and abroad, fine wines and cigars, autographed books by famous authors, antiques, and memorabilia. A huge thank you goes out to everyone who helped find these items, and the wonderful people who donated them. 

A free flow of wine, drinks, and snacks were served throughout the party.

And some of our older children from the Little Flower group homes gave short presentations about their experiences and time at Little Flower. Afterwards, they got to draw the raffle tickets and announce the lucky winners.

It was a great success, with about 140,000 raised. Though this is only a small fraction of our monthly budget, every bit counts, and 100% of all the money raised will go directly towards childcare. Thanks again to everyone who pitched in to run this great community event!

The 2014 Austrian Embassy Charity Ski Race

Combining charity work with winter sport, family fun, and some amazing Austrian national spirit, the 2014 Austrian Charity Ski Race has come and gone once again. With over 500 participants from more than a dozen countries, the event was a huge success. Last year, they raised over RMB 445,000 for Little Flower children,  and we are so happy to have been a part of their event again this year.

This was Little Flower's third year participating in the annual Charity Ski Race run by the amazing people at the Austrian Embassy in Beijing, who--after months of hard work and planning--were able to pull off their biggest event yet. On Friday, guests were transported to the Genting Grand Ski Resort about 3-4 hours outside of Beijing, and the fun commenced. Guests were greeted upon arrival by an Austrian band, who played music the entire weekend, and everyone enjoyed an Austrian wine reception that evening. Ambassador Irene Giner-Reichl was in attendance, as were families and guests from Austria, China, and other countries around the world.

Sarah Leung and Mirjam Grueter, two of our Development Team members, also attended the race to represent Little Flower!

On Saturday, the day of the race, everyone was up early and ready to hit the slopes for charity.

There were several events in different age groups, for both skiing and snowboarding.

Even the band was outside. In their shorts, no less!

Here, Oskar Andesner, the Commercial Counsellor at the Austrian Embassy and the man behind this great charity event, has just crossed the finish line.

Across these several events, race winners included folks from Austria, China, Germany, the USA, Denmark, and others.

Everyone gathered for a group photo when the race ended that afternoon, and many headed back up the slopes for more skiing!

That evening, the charity dinner, auction, and raffle took place. Many demonstrated their national pride by attending dinner in their Austrian national costumes.

Race winners were announced, and speeches were given by sponsors, locals from the Hebei area, and race organizers. The event was an amazing amalgamation of Austrian and Chinese business cooperation, local community building, networking, and of course charity work.

Here, Mr. Andesner receives recognition for the hard work that went into putting together the Ski Race for the past five years!

This was followed by dinner, as well as the charity auction and raffle.

Raffle prizes even included some winter-inspired art by Little Flower kids. There were a few very-much coveted penguin paintings that went fast!

We are so grateful to the wonderful people at the Austrian Embassy for not only putting so much hard work into creating a wonderful event for all participants, but also for making such an impact in helping to spread the word and raise money for Little Flower children. As our capacity grows and we take in more children each year, this international and local support from the Beijing community is crucial to the continued running of Little Flower's projects. With events and partnerships like this one with the Austrians, we can continue to save lives and let more people know about Little Flower's goals of providing medical care, education, foster care, and long-term care to abandoned children in China.

We were ecstatic to have participated in the race this year. A huge thank you goes out from us to everyone involved at the Austrian Embassy!