The Taiwan Fund for Children and Families’ (TFCF) Changhua branch on Thursday held a ceremony to thank a farmer who donated a truckload of cabbages to help the group purchase protective armor for its kenjutsu team.
Lin Chin-te (林進得) donated a truckload of about 1,000 cabbages early this year after cabbage prices plummeted, it said.
About the same time, the group formed a kenjutsu — Japanese swordsmanship — team for students it was looking after.
Photo: Yen Hung-chun, Taipei Times
Branch supervisor Lin Hui-mei (林惠媚) said it did not have the money to purchase the armor, which costs NT$13,000 apiece, so she had an idea to sell the cabbages to raise funds.
She launched an online fundraiser titled “Raising funds for kenjutsu outfits for TFCF kids,” which sold the cabbages at NT$10 each.
Much to her surprise, all the cabbages were sold in just three days, she said.
The fundraiser attracted the attention of a local columbarium, Damao Biotech, a local bakery, Taipei-based Lei Ying Co and nurses at the Yuanlin Christian Hospital, who donated more items to the group.
TFCF made NT$444,000 from selling the donations, surpassing its goal of NT$400,000, Lin said.
Recounting how the team was founded, Lin said many of the children had behavioral issues and nothing she tried could control them.
She then thought of working with kenjutsu practitioner Chan Chih-yuan (詹智淵) to instruct the children in the martial art.
With Chan’s help, the group established contact with former national kenjutsu team coach Chuang Yi-yuan (莊益源), who agreed to coach them.
Kenjutsu made a significant change in the children, Lin said.
“For example, they used to ignore me when I asked them to mop the floors, but now they take the initiative to clean,” she said.
She said she is proud to see the children focused and competitive while practicing kenjutsu and show good manners outside of class.
“Acts of kindness will be rewarded by more kindness,” Lin said, thanking people for their support.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS