Evergreen:A Story of Two Settings

In the summer of 2007, a ten-day Evergreen English summer camp was held at Linghu Middle School in Huzhou of Eastern China’s coastal Zhejiang Province. Seven English teachers were from universities in North America, all volunteers from Evergreen Education Foundation of the United States. They were popular at the camp and they excited the youngsters to work hard at achieving their language proficiency.

The fact that the Evergreen Education Foundation has hooked up with the middle school in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province for an education program indicates more than the foundation’s noteworthy presence and endeavors to promote rural education in China. The connection traces the roots of the foundation.

Yu Liqing, vice president of the foundation and a noted writer with overseas Chinese readers, came to visit friends in Cixi, Zhejiang in the summer of 2006 after she had finished her mission in Yunnan, a border province in southwest China. When we met, I asked her if there was a possible connection between the foundation and the Linghu Middle School in Huzhou. I explained that I once worked at the school and knew it had been previously known as Evergreen School founded by Zhang Rongchu, a patriotic entrepreneur based in Shanghai. Hearing the history, Yu said she would ask Zhao Yaoyu (Faith Chao), president of the foundation and a professor with Golden Gate University in San Francisco. There and then, Yu made an international phone call to Zhao. Professor Zhao was excited at the news. “We found our roots in China!”

I contacted the government office concerned in Huzhou and the middle school. The two evergreen education institutions soon bonded.

A representative from the foundation came to Huzhou and attended a ceremony in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the middle school on 28th of October, 2007. A journalist from Global Journal, the largest Chinese newspaper in North America, came along to cover the event and wrote a story about the connection between the two evergreens.

Zhang Rongchu (1901-1972), founder of the evergreen education program, was a native of Huzhou, Zhejiang Province. Shortly after he made a business fortune in Shanghai in 1933, he set up a primary school in his hometown Linghu Town. Hometown pupils attended the school free of charge. He also set up scholarships. The school and the scholarships all carried the name Evergreen. The name came from a Chinese proverb that “you plant trees if you want benefits in 10 years and you educate people if you want benefits to last 100 years”.

The aggression war launched by Japan in 1937 brought the school down to total ruins. It was not until 1946 that Zhang Rongchu had a chance to finance the rebuilding of the evergreen school in his hometown. The rebuilt 4.6-hectare school offered elementary and middle school education combined in American style. Zhang provided adequate funds for the school to purchase teaching equipments and hire teachers. The school became well known in the northern part of Zhejiang. The Shanghai-based scholarships were also resumed to help students from needy families to go through college.

Xin Dejun was one of the beneficiaries of evergreen scholarships. He almost gave up college education and planned to find a job due to his family’s poor financial situation although his score of the entrance examination was more than good. One day he was notified by Datong University of Shanghai that he was to receive a full scholarship. Xin never forgot the Evergreen financial aid that changed his life and promised to himself that he would help others as Zhang Rongchu had helped him.

When reform and opening-up started on the mainland, Xin, then a successful businessman in Hong Kong, came back to Shanghai and Huzhou in the hope of saying thank you in person to Zhang Rongchu for the scholarship. His benefactor had passed away. Xin kept his word. He donated generously and had several schools built on the mainland and financially helped over 20 students to study in European and American universities. In 2001, Xin Dejun learned that Zhao Yaoyu was raising money for a foundation designed to help education undertakings in outback places in China, he donated an amount of seed money with the condition that the foundation be named evergreen.

Xin’s mother and Zhao’s mother were close friends in their teenage years. When Xin Dejun was about to leave for Hong Kong for career opportunities, Zhao Yaoyu’s father helped the young man get started in Hong Kong. So Xin regards Zhao Yaoyu as a cousin. Zhao Yaoyu is from a family long engaged in education. Her maternal grandfather Li Gengsheng set up more than 10 schools in Yangzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province. Her mother, a teacher, donated all the money for her wedding to have a primary school set up in Zhenjiang, another city in Jiangsu Province. The school was destroyed during the World War Two. She tried twice in vain to have it rebuilt. On her deathbed she asked her daughter to do her best to have the school rebuilt. Decades later, Zhao Yaoyu finally had the school rebuilt in her mother’s hometown Huaiying, Jiangsu Province in 1993.

The Evergreen Education Foundation came into being in 2001. It has American volunteers who commit themselves to working for people who need their help. So far, the foundation has helped 34 schools for children of migrant parents in China, scattered in remote provinces such as Guizhou and Gansu as well as the coastal Jiangsu province and the suburbs of Beijing, set up libraries with computers that access the Internet. Evergreen has also issued scholarships to more than 300 students from needy families. In 2004, the organization was honoredwith Access to Learning Award by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its efforts to set up libraries with computers with Internet hookup in remote Chinese western provinces.

Since 1946, over 30,000 students have graduated from Linghu Middle School. Today, the previous evergreen has grown into a key provincial middle school with 2,900 students and a faculty of nearly 200. Designated by Ministry of Education, the school offers special courses for students from Tibet. The school also issues evergreen scholarships through a foundation set up and supported by teachers, business people and alumni. There will be more activities between the two evergreens. Another English summer camp is scheduled; the school will host an international seminar on IT and education in May, 2008.