May 15, 2008

Dear friends,

As we are all deeply saddened by the news of recent devastating earthquake in China, many hope to help those in need right away.  For most of us in US or other countries, making donations through aid agencies and charities is still a great option.  While there are quite a few well established organizations that can handle your donation, I strongly recommend for you to consider The Angel Pray Child Charity Foundation (APCCF).

APCCF, found in 2005, is a grass-roots nonprofit charitable organization registered in the state of Pennsylvania, US.  Its mission is to save, help and support children who are poor, sick, disabled, abandoned, suffering, homeless or living in the miserable conditions that prohibit their healthy growth and continued education worldwide.  This organization is 100% run by volunteers.  As a donor of APCCF for the past few years, I have been very impressed by the effort of the volunteers, including many of my colleagues, by its projects and by its operation.  In the following, I list a few reasons why I want to recommend APCCF for your consideration.

1)               1) The most frequently asked question when one makes a donation is ‘What percent of my donation will actually go to the victims?”.   Well, unlike most big name charities, APCCF is 100% run by volunteers.  Therefore it has zero-overhead and minimal operation expense (payment processing).  As a result, almost 100% of your donation will go to the victims.

            2)    Distributing and using funds effectively is just as important as fundraising.  One of the reasons that APCCF has been successful is because the organization always has a clear focus.  APCCF will not just quickly spread the donation money and walk away.  As much as we want to help as soon as possible, the reality is that for those devastating areas, money is not what they need the most right now.  For the survivors in those areas, dealing with after-quake life is probably going to be more challenging.  For AFCCF, after initially sending a team to the under-helped areas to address the most urgent needs, the long term focus of the effort will be on helping orphans and seriously disabled children in Du Jiang Yan (都江堰) area.

           3)    APCCF is closely working with a local coordinator to form a volunteer team.  The team will 1)update local disaster recovery situation, 2)provide short term help, 3)identify orphans and seriously disabled children and come up with a practical relief plan, and 4)report fund distribution progress.  All these updates will be posted on the APCCF web site.

           4)    Like most charities, APCCF is classified as a nonprofit charitable organization and is recognized for tax exemption by IRS under the 501(c)(3) code.  Individual and corporate donations are tax deductible.  If your company has a gift matching program, APCCF is eligible for such a program.  APCCF will send a receipt for donor’s tax record.

 For more information about APCCF and how to make a donation, please visit

http://www.angelpray.org/

http://www.angelpray.org/China-earthquake.htm

If you have any question or concern, please feel free to contact APCCF directly or myself at weiwangca at yahoo.com.

 Sincerely yours,

Wei Wang

A new volunteer of APCCF