The day before the Mid Autumn Festival, You Dao received confirmation from New World Hotel that a hundred packs of Mooncakes would be donated to the migrant children of You Dao. We joyfully delivered to our sponsored children at the kindergartens and to our two community centers at Beiyaowan and Qingpu. We also gave some to the volunteers who were helping the children with homework on the day of the delivery. Upon receiving the mooncakes, the children expressed their thanks to the hotel. The children and the parents said that they had never tried such special mooncakes before. Some families brought along other food to share with the children at the center. The afternoon was spent with joy, excitement and thankfulness. Our sincere thanks go to New World Shanghai Hotel for their kind donation. This has brought much blessing and warmth to the migrant families on a special Chinese traditional festival.

Last night we had the seventh Mr Willis Fund-Raising dinner that coincided by a day with the fourth anniversary of the restaurant. It was I consider a mile-stone event with Craig as everyone there got into the spirit of the event. Craig himself thought it is a “wonderful night” and “a great success”.
We had a full-house that was treated to great food and enjoyable entertainment from Caitlin Reilly, an Australian born multi media artist, with her back-up team. The participants also committed themselves to a further twenty scholarships for migrant children.
Migrants make up about 10 million of our population here of 24 million. Of this number there are over half a million migrant children at school. Obviously a number of these children come from families who are in very difficult circumstances for a variety of reasons such as ill-health of the parents. We are all trying to do our bit to help alleviate this situation.

On 13th September 2013, a group of twenty one volunteers came to Malu Tian Tian Kindergarten to spend some quality time with thirty migrant children. The activity was run in small teams and included stories about idioms, IQ competitions and an outdoor sports relay. The idea was to teach the children the importance of cooperation with a team spirit. During the activities, the volunteers showed their skills at leadership, knowledge and the spirit of cooperation. Love and patience were shown on their faces when they carefully led the children to the right answers. After sharing some exciting joyful moment in the playground, they were all happy to have some snacks together. Each team was rewarded with prizes and they all sincerely congratulated the team who was the champion of the day. This event was sponsored by CareFusion.

On 27th August, a group of ten children were taken to watch the movie, 3D Jurassic Park. This was showing at Xi Jiao Bai Lian, Xian Xia Lu.

Over the past year, You Dao has come to understand that the children who come to our center over the weekends have never been out to see a lot in Shanghai due to the fact that the parents are busy working. The parents sometimes do not understand that the children need to learn through experience. Therefore, You Dao and a few volunteers created the opportunity to let the children experience the 3D effect and the sound system at a cinema. This brought lifelike dinosaurs to their limited world.

From the movie they learnt that the cause of the disruption in the dream park is the guy who thinks about his own benefit and disregards the safety of other people.

The event was sponsored by ladies who attend a calligraphy class taught by Josephine.

During the hot summer, 15th – 20th August, a team of workers was sent by Lend Lease to come to our Qingpu Center to help renovate one of the rooms by adding a wooden floor, painting the walls and installing shades outside the window frames. The room was refurbished as new and will be used for the after school tutoring program. The workers also built a big roof top at the open area so that the children can still play outside even if it is raining.

A sincere thank you to Lend Lease for their continuous support to You Dao in providing for the needs of the migrant families – to truly “walk and grow” with them.