Since our ‘News & Updates’ section was only added recently, we decided to create a recap of Lantern Foundation’s partnerships and achievements from April 2023 to April 2024. While our external achievements such as our community events are very valuable to us, we also want to highlight the behind-the-scenes efforts and milestones that we have reached as a developing organization.
April 2023
We consider April 2023 the official launch for our foundation because we officially began our partnership with the Beijing SmileAngel Children’s Hospital, a major milestone for us. Through this partnership, we would support cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries for kids in rural China and provide doctors’ medical checkups in rural areas, ultimately working to address the health disparities in rural communities.
Establishing collaborations, especially with international organizations such as those from China, is not an easy feat. Because misplaced and misused funds are a common problem for some Chinese nonprofits, we spent much of our time researching organizations, verifying their nonprofits’ validity, and reconciling their bank data with their work. Additionally, with different regulations and policies between the US and China, there were many issues that we had to resolve such as transferring donations.
August 2023
Over the summer, we led many small-scale fundraising initiatives around the community. We visited parks, community centers, and markets across the Bay Area to share about our organization’s mission with members of the community and raise money for the SmileAngel Children’s Hospital. By the end of October, we had reached $5000 in donations, an amount we did not expect we would reach in merely four months.
On August 23rd, we were also officially set up with California’s Secretary of State. This meant that we were now recognized as an official legal entity in California. While this might not seem like a major achievement, it was extremely important for us because it gave us the legal standing and credibility necessary to further our organization’s missions.
November 2023
In November, after hearing about a little boy in Guangxi who was diagnosed with leukemia yet lacked the funds for medical treatment, we reached out to local volunteers in touch with the family to learn more about how we could help cover the costs for chemotherapy. Living in Jiangkou Town, a small rural area in Guiping, Guangxi, the little boy would have to travel into the city to receive the necessary treatment. Through our contact with local volunteers from Guangxi for this initiative, we decided to expand our partnership to aid more families and children who faced similar challenges. We also began communicating with volunteers from other provinces in China. Our work with these local volunteers eventually led us to establish our ‘Bridging Barriers’ project that addressed unseen, specific challenges that families in rural areas faced.
Additionally, we initiated our project ‘Education for Every Child’ since we believed that besides health challenges, having good educational opportunities was another major barrier for children in rural towns. This initiative began with our distribution of school materials to kids in rural areas, mainly consisting of backpacks and stationery. By receiving good quality supplies, we hoped that this could serve as a reminder of the importance of education and encourage students, especially high schoolers who received our donations, to continue pursuing education.
January 2024
In January, we had our first sponsorship and large-scale fundraising led by the American Entrepreneur Association, a nonprofit that aims to promote social developments in local and foreign communities and to serve as a liaison for organizations, though mostly entrepreneurial, between US and China. The American Entrepreneur Association helped us raise donations for our project with the Beijing SmileAngel Children’s Hospital. Through our collaboration with AEA, we reached another donation milestone of $15,000 by the end of March.
March 2024
This March, we were also approved for our first international trip as an organization. In June, Valerie will travel to Gansu with the Beijing SmileAngel Children’s Hospital to provide checkups for kids with cleft lips and palates and conduct family visits in rural Linxia. She will also visit Guangxi to meet some of the families that Lantern Foundation has since been supporting on a regular basis. This will be the first of many international trips to come!
Looking Ahead
We have many exciting events and partnerships planned for the near future, and we cannot wait to share them with you! We hope to continue expanding our organization, spreading awareness to a larger audience, raising more donations, and ultimately helping more kids in rural China. Stay tuned for more updates as we work toward our mission of improving health access and educational opportunities for children across rural China!
