Author: Bian Haofei Editor: Liu Xin Translator: Zoe Zeng

I am Bian Haofei, from Baoding, Hebei, and studying in university in Nanchang, Jiangxi. I joined the FLFC in September, 2013 and became an intermediary volunteer, being responsible for connecting the first FLFC primary school in Jiangxi province, the Chuangcang primary school in Xiushui County, Jiujiang. I have been staying with FLFC for tow years till now. Retrospectively, it seemed like a coincidence when I joined the FLFC as I got acquainted with Jiang Xiaoling from Jiangxi Normal University through the Xinlang Weibo. At that time, she was focus on caring the "shidu" elderly, who have lost their only child, and working as a FLFC volunteer when I joined the school volunteer as well. Consequently, I was admitted into Jiangxi FLFC and fell in love with it in the following two years. I think that it is my insistence on public welfare that spurs me to participate in volunteer activities. Then, this power pushed me to the FLFC.

2013 the first acquaintance with FLFC

There were many problems when I first became a volunteer, however, thanks to a series of regime of FLFC, I could deal with them. Online: every month we would have several training for the new entrants. I needed to register in the QQ group and trained the volunteers with detailed explanations for their tasks, forms processing and Weibo repost. When volunteers had problems, they could ask in the QQ group and they would be answered on site. Offline: our team would organize dinner party to let everyone meet each other. We chatted and made jokes on each other without distance. Reporter Wu Yongjun, the leader of Jiangxi FLFC, imitated Zeng Zhiwei accent and spoke with a joke every time, which let everyone burst into laughter. We called him Shuji, haha, while I don't know why we call it until now. It was this warm atmosphere that made me blend into the new community instantly. Public welfare should not have had boundaries and too many restrictions, but we should take the responsibility voluntarily.

Wu Yongjun, the leader of Jiangxi FLFC and the originator of Yi Lu Sunshine Public Welfare. Nickname

In November, 2013, I followed Deng Fei, with some volunteers from the Jiangxi team, to the free lunch opening ceremony of Shuangxi primary school in Wuning County, Jiujiang. When the first time I went there with Deng Fei, we found that the condition of Shuangxi primary school was poor, which was accord with all the images in my mind, including the floor without tiles, the battered walls and the small campus. Watching the purity and eagerness in the children's eyes on the ceremony, I really wanted to cook for them. (Haha, it was a pity that I didn't know how to cook at that time. Also there were professional cook for the children.) We had lunch with the children (of course we needed to pay 5 yuan per person). This meal impressed me because there were two dishes with meat, a soup and an egg within the cost of 3 yuan per child. While in the canteen of my university, we can eat such a delicious and full meal in 9 yuan.

Volunteers from Jiangxi FLFC took a photo with Deng Fei

Children in FLFC school

Since Chuangcang primary school was handed to me two years ago, I have sprung up a strong love to it unconsciously. One time, regional executive Jianing took me to visit the FLFC schools in Jiangxi at random. We visited Jinglin Primary  School and Chuancang Primary School in Xiushui County, Jiujiang. This visit impressed me a lot that it seemed to happen yesterday when I recalled it. The Chuangcang  Primary School is quite remote and it is unimaginable that the school is 70 km far from the county and 30 km far from the county government. It took us more than one hour to go to the school by van through the mountain road, where one side are cliffs and jungles, another side is a steep mountain. 

It was my first time to go through this kind of road by van and I felt scared that I would fall off the steep mountain when the van door opened suddenly. However, Jianing is very familiar to this kind of road as she has gone to some places with worse safe conditions. In contrast with her clam was my nervousness. My upbringing made me have few impressions of the countryside, so I felt lost when seeing this remote mountain. Jianglin talked to me calmly, there are many schools with worse condition than this and it's nice that we can get there through the cement road! We only can walk to some schools in Guizhou as the car can't get to it. After hearing it, I felt shame with my ignorance and deeply understood the prefunding meaning of a free lunch for children here in this circumstance. At the same time, Jianing is a brave girl that she is in charge of the execution of several areas and visiting many schools with poor and dangerous conditions, while she just few years older than me.

The way to the school is a cement road winds through mountains.

Over several mountains, Chuancang  County is in a hollow, whose environment made me hardly connect it with school. The school gate made up of two shabby iron gates. Our target of this visit was to check the standard for school to offer meals and we met the principal. There were about 120 children in the school, but they were in good order and lined up to have lunch. When there were no enough seats in the canteen, they went out to have lunch in classrooms or on the table tennis table.

After a series of checks, we hurriedly had lunch, wrote down the situations and problems of the school and went back. This visit impressed me very much that it let me determine my goal of being a good volunteer. And it doesn't stop until now. After visiting the Chuancang Primary School in the mountain, I understand that a free lunch is an expectation for children rather than a meal. After visiting there, I know that what the people living in mountain need and we should give them a hand.

A girl in the FLFC school

The visit in November, 2013, the principal of Chuancang Primary School was with me.

(The young principal has just graduated from university and replaced the resigned principal temporarily.)

2014, FLFC accompanied me to ride thousand miles

A year past, FLFC let me know more about public welfare and get acquainted with a group of excellent volunteers. As there are more FLFC schools in Jiangxi, we need more volunteers. Most of the new entrants are university students. We got familiar with each other as time gone by. ity and replaced the resigned principal temporarily. 

Public welfare made us get closer in a few minutes and we became good friends after several meetings. They are great partners, including Shitou, who manages the team; Mumu, who is in charge of Weichat and the Country Book project; Wanjie, who has an excellent skill of photographing; Zhangyong and Anan, who set up the volunteer site in Jingdezhen. Everyone has a long story. 

Among them, Jiang Xiaoling impresses me most that she led me to the FLFC, when she was a volunteer in Yichun Shencun  Primary School. At that time, she organized a activity called Make a Wish in Primary School, which asked children to draw their dreams and brought it to university to find people who were willing to help them realize the dreams. From then on, I started thinking about what I can do for the FLFC. 

Then I fell in love with riding gradually and bought an entry-level mountain bike. By chance through the Weibo I knew that some American university students rode from east coast to west coast and did advertisements for FLFC for free. I thought that I could do something like this.

(1) At the beginning of June, I did many advertisements for FLFC in school including classes, teachers, canteen owners, dormitory attendants and so on. I urged each one of them to donate 3 yuan to FLFC and I collected 200 yuan at last. Though the number of money is small, it encouraged me very much.

(2) After consulting the experiences of long-distance riding, I decided the riding route. On June 28, 2014, my friend Ma Yuepeng and I started riding from school. We brought the following things with us, the brochures of FLFC, a note book for recording the public welfare, a flag of Yilu Sunshine Public Welfare Developing Center( the executive team of FLFC in Jiangxi) and a flag og FLFC. At the same time, I initiated topic # Free Lunch for Children, Riding for Love# on the Weibo, which would gives live coverage of my journey.  

In 20 days, we started from Nanchang, passing Jiujiang, Wuhan, Zhengzhou, Baoding and Zhuozhou, and finally arrived in Beijing with another volunteer Peichen on July 18 ( When in Henan, Ma Yuepeng's grandma pasted away and he needed to stop his riding plan in advance. When passing Xinxiang city, Peichen from Heinan Normal University undertook his plan and wen with me to Beijing). In 20 days, we explained the meaning of FLFC to more than 200 people and asked them to sign their names on the notebook. In 20 days, we went in to deep mountains; we pitched our tents on the street; we slept in the police station and I was followed by someone on the national highways at 9 o'clock in the evening. We met a lot of kind people, although some were bad. 

In those journeys, what impresses me most till now is that many people are unconcerned about public welfare. Their refusals made me so sad. They hid from us and refused FLFC and even some of them though us were swindlers. In addition, some people saw the FLFC flags and baggage on our bikes and though that we would deliver free lunch to them. Some thought that we were cheating by using the flags. In the 1800 km from Nanchang to Beijing, I knew that people's knowledge about public welfare was much less than we thought.

On June 28, 2014, in front of the library of Nanchang Institute of Science and Technology, we started our journey.

On July 17, 2014, we arrived at Beijing Tian An Men.

On July 18, 2014, we took a photo with Deng Fei in the FLFC office.

(3) In October, 2014, the mission of FLFC in later that year was to hold presentations in major cities around the country to let people know more about FLFC. I had a honor to hold the first presentation in Nanchang, which was supported by school. At the same time, many advertisements stared in the school. There are 28 thousand students in the school. At the end of October, the school launched a campaign of inkjet printing show. Also the Hundred signatures and FLFC Wish Wal were held successfully. I invited the Jiangxi FLFC team to do the presentation in school too. There were more than 300 audiences and most importantly, we absorbed a number of volunteers into FLFC through this activity.

The advertisement site of FLFC and the lovely volunteers

FLFC national presentation in Nanchang

2015, ride for love

With the experience in the last two years, I wanted to make a breakthrough in the third year. Therefore, in 2015, I planned to ride through Sichuan and Xizang with the theme Ride for Love 2015 FLFC presentation group in Sichuan and Xizang. This was also my gift to Cangniuniu as it was the fourth anniversary of FLFC. Here was the activity: 

(1) Offline advertisement, presentation and visit (youth hostel was the main site)1. We gave presentations in youth hostels in Nanchang, Chengdu, Lasha, intruding the aim and meaning of FLFC and riding activity, sharing the experiences and stories of being FLFC volunteers and leading people to sing the theme song Flowers and Rice of FLFC. We invited people to donate, which would be calculated by the third party and shown on the Weibo. Every time when we ended the presentation, we would take photos with the participants, holding the FLFC flag, recorded the number of participants and evaluated the effect of the presentation. 

2. If we had support like enterprise sponsor(media, poster, leaflet and so on), we would hold a open ceremony of the activity in the landmarks of Chengdu before setting out and set up a site for advertising FLFC, where the local FLFC volunteer would give presentations. After reaching Lasha, we would do advertisements by using materials in the Potala Square and sing the theme songs of FLFC. 

3. We would interview the FLFC schools, which were close to our riding trail, to know the their conditions of offering meals and communicate with teachers and students. (In the last two year as being a FLFC volunteer, I have visited 4 FLFC primary schools and gained the experiences of visiting and checking.

(2) Online donations and broadcast (depending on the donations initiated by Xinlang and Tencent public welfare) 

1. Initiate the topic #Ride for Love# on Xinlang micro charity and Tencent donation

2. The team gives live coverage of the process of riding and giving presentations with photos, words and videos through the Xinlang Weibo, QQ space, Wechat and Tieba. 

3. We invited media and friends who rode through Sichuan and Xizang to join and focus us and offer help as they can to our team.

As for why I used the riding to broadcast FLFC, I want to say that I love riding and charity. It's great that I can do these two things together. 

Finally, I appreciate the FLFC team, partners and shuji, who encouraged and accompanied with me in the last two year.

Bian Haofei  center most tough and hardworking prize

He has a black skin like Baozheng and also acts like him that he leads other volunteers to go further on the way to public welfare. He rode from Nanchang to Beijing on his own with insistence under his black skin. In this 1800 km, we can feel his energy and invincibility, so we honor him this award.

Classic quote