Getting involved to help each other out

After becoming a mother, I discovered a whole other side to the Shanghai party scene. The Shanghai mother community is a subculture that is so much more than just a group of moms having lunch. Many mothers are active in a wide variety of community organizations, often targeting the children of China. As any mother knows, once you have a child, you becoming much more sensitive to the plight of children around the world. Something in your heart is triggered whenever you hear about a suffering child and you look at your own child thriving in your own home and wonder what I ever did to deserve such a lucky life. To help spread this luck here are some information on community organizations in Shanghai.

Mae-Ling Tien, mother of one, moved from the Bay Area 3 years ago. She “organized monthly morning Mommy Teas to gather friends together. A year later these Mommy Teas turned into Ladies Luncheons as I wanted to include working moms and female friends who didn't have families yet or were not planning to start a family.” After the recent events of the Sichan earthquake, she naturally she decided to use her network of friends to create fundraisers. Her first Ladies Fundraiser was held at Otto Café and featured the Half the Sky’s Children Earthquake Fund. Half the Sky is a community organization that trains and places nannies in orphanages to work one on one with orphans as well as trains preschool teachers to teach in rural areas in China. Tien plans to continue these fundraising luncheons after her summer holiday where she will feature more groups in the Shanghai community. This is a great way to get involved and also meet other people.

Ever wonder what to do with all the leftover clothes in your closet, or all those clothes that your kids only wore once and then were too big to wear them again? The River of Hearts organization collects used clothes and sends them all over China. They have drop off locations all over Shanghai, check their website www.riverofhearts.org for more information. They have sorting parties where volunteers can help sort through the mass of clothing and box them up for shipment. According to assistant co-ordinator Mark Bourne, in their last sorting party on May 21st, they had a “record breaking 331 volunteers” and shipped 492 boxes.

Heart to Heart Shanghai is a Community Outreach Group that specializes in raising funds to provide life saving heart surgeries for children. These surgeries enable children to attend school and live a full and happy life. Christine Cullen states, “We are a very hands-on group with the Chinese children and schools that we support in that we conduct hospital play-sessions with children undergoing open heart surgery; collect and donate clothing, toys and toiletries; and conduct field-trip weekends to some of their villages where we distribute donated goods [as well as] visit local rural community schools to which we donate a full range of school library books.” To raise funds for heart surgeries, the group hand makes Heart Bears to sell at expat bazaars. So far these bears have funded 60 surgeries.

If everyone could just take 5 minutes out of their day to do something good for someone else, think about how much positive energy we could create in this massive city we live in.