On May 27th, 2024, Lantern Foundation held its biggest charity event yet. Mainly targeting middle and elementary schoolers, we invited students across multiple schools in the Bay Area to attend our event. With over 30 kids and around 70 adults in attendance, we raised over $20,000, an amount we never would have imagined was possible, and packaged over 200 backpacks, Lego boxes, bracelet packs, and stationery.
The event started off with Valerie Li, the founder of our organization, giving a speech about Lantern Foundation’s background, projects, and future plans. Valerie shared why she chose to help rural kids in China, expressing her interest in learning about “left-behind children” and explaining how international politics has made this issue relatively unknown in the United States.
Valerie also spoke about the importance of creating a community that cares about addressing the inequities that kids in rural areas face: “When all of us here today are able to work towards helping the kids, the impact that we create is a lot bigger […] It’s not just about me being able to help these children but all of you guys here today who can also contribute and help out.”
To finish her speech, Valerie encouraged everyone to adopt a mindset of “naive optimism.” Even if we can only raise enough money for one surgery, that still matters because one kid’s life is still impacted. Everything requires small steps because small steps create big change, she explained.
Afterward, kids from the event created aid packages that will be delivered to kids in rural China during our international trip. Using old and miscellaneous Lego pieces that our volunteers donated, attendees packaged the Lego pieces into boxes. Each box contained a base piece, a figurine, and more building pieces. Valerie said that the idea behind this activity was to promote sustainability by repurposing old items while fostering creativity for kids in rural China.
Another activity attendees participated in was bracelet-making. In total, they made a little over fifty bracelets that were then packaged into individual bags. Although bracelets might not have a major material impact on the lives of kids in rural China, they serve as a valuable symbol of connection between the kids that helped at our event and the kids in rural China. Furthermore, we hope that our volunteers will remember the importance of their work when they see their handmade bracelets worn by the kids we seek to help.
As attendees worked on their various activities, some of our volunteers also promoted our organization’s missions to people who passed by during our event. We handed out baked goods and sold plants to them, with their donations being a vital part of our total amount raised.
A few of our attendees also helped us package backpacks, placing all the necessary stationery and toys and bracelets into each backpack. Working in assembly line fashion, our attendees and volunteers ensured that each backpack had the correct goods. These backpacks were then placed into suitcases that will later be brought to the kids in rural China by Valerie.
During her speech, Valerie explained the significance of our event’s activities: “Something I want to emphasize today is how much each of your actions matter. Every Lego box will be given to a kid, every bracelet will also be gifted to someone, and every dollar will go to one of our causes.”
This event was by far our biggest and most successful one yet, and we cannot wait for more events in the future! Until the next one!
