Aid for stricken regions.
Birmingham Chinatown – including Chung Ying Restaurant Group and Birmingham Chinatown Lions Club – has helped a group of Birmingham volunteers to pull off two charity events within a fortnight, raising over £1,700 for charity.
During September-November, Project TOM volunteers worked in conjunction with the Samaritans Purse’s Operation Christmas Child (an international relief and development organisation), raising £1, 250 to procure over 3000 items and sending all 335 gift-filled shoeboxes to children in the Third World. A total of 1,373 shoeboxes have been sent to the Third World in the past five years, with approximately 19,200 gifts inside.
Operation Christmas Child is the world’s largest, childrens Christmas project started some 23 years ago and has since delivered over 100 million gift-filled shoeboxes to needy children in 130 countries. In 2012, the UK network of schools, churches and organisations sent nearly one million shoeboxes to children in the Third World alone.
Then on 29th November, Project TOM’s 18th event comprised of a raffle in aid of the Philippines Typhoon Appeal, at the launch party of Chung Ying Central Restaurant on Colmore Row, Birmingham. A total of £500 was raised and all proceeds went towards the Disasters Emergency Committee.
Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines on the 8th November and was one of the most intense tropical storms to ever make landfall anywhere in the world. It brought torrential rain, sustained winds of over 195mph and a storm surge of up to 30 feet that devastated coastal areas. Over 13 million people have been affected, including five million children. Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes and there are countless dead. Those who have survived still need urgent help including emergency shelter, clean water and food.
2013 marks the fifth anniversary of Project TOM, a voluntary, non-profit group that encourages more young people into charity work. Volunteers get together two or three times a year to fundraise and support various different charities around the world. Everyone donates their spare time and effort on top of their full-time jobs or studies. To date, they have raised over £38,000 for charitable causes both at home and abroad, with almost 60,000 beneficiaries.
Wai Lo Li, 29, a communications executive by day, co-ordinated the charity events in her spare tim, alongside Project TOM volunteers. She said “We are delighted to have been able to help those in need, especially during this festive season of goodwill.”
As the founder of Project TOM, she added; “We were really pleased to have raised £500 at the Chung Ying Central launch party event, in aid of the Philippines Typhoon Appeal. There were concerns and constraints as to how we could pull off and complete both events within such a short amount of time and with no budget, but we finally managed in the end! Well done to all the sponsors and volunteers involved!”