Wang Ting usually spends two hours on her way to school.

Every morning, the 10-year-old girl should get up at five and get together 

with her three other friends. They then go to school without eating anything.

They need to cross a mountain and a deep valley, then walking alone the road and finally get to school.

The hardest part is crossing the mountain. It is steep, and almost perpendicular to the land. The narrow road is full of thorns. Wang Ting doesn't know how many times she had fallen down on this road. She almost got blinded the most serious time.

"It's better in summer because the sky gets bright pretty early in the morning. 

It's very painful for us during winter times. We should alwasy leave home when the sky is still dark." said Wang Ting. The four children's parents always take turns escorting them to school in winter. Usually, the parents would go back home after crossing the mountain with them.

There's a girl names Wang Yan who always goes to school with Wang Ting. Her parents are working in Zhe Jiang province, leaving her behind with her grandma. She is very impressed with her way to school. "My grandma would use flashlight accompanying us to school." said by Wang Yan. By the time her grandma gets back home, the sky had already turned bright.

In the educational reform in 2001, many middle schools and elementary schools in the villages had been repealed. So that students would only be educated in some town schools. However, after this reform, more and more kids who are just like Wang Ting need to go a long way to reach their schools. There is another problem, kids who are lefted by their parents don't usually get good grades and don't have appropriate behaviors.

In order to solve such problems, Fang Kunyou, the principal of Sha Ba elementary school in Qianxi county, Bijie city, had come up with a solution which could solve both problems. "If it would be

successful, then both problems could be solved." said by Fang Kunyou.

Two hours are needed from home to school

One Exam

This is not just a regular exam. One day on January, 2015, final exam was taking place in Sha Ba elementary school. Before the exam, Fang Kunyou told all the teachers that this exam was not related to the grade, but should be absolutely fair for everyone. "This could prevent teachers giving high scores to his own students."

This unusual final exam made many teachers confused except Fang Kunyou, the principal, and Xiao Liya, who was a teacher. This final exam was not only tested how well the students learned during this semester, but also to find out if there was any difference between the students who were lefted by their parents at home and students who had their parents with them.

The results showed, the average of the children who were lefted by their parents was 9.27 points lower than the others.

"Except their grades, many children who are living with their grandparents have some bad habits such as lying, lazyness and fighting." said by Fang Kunyou after observation.

This was definitely not a good signal.

Children who were lefted by their parents composed 52% of all the students in Sha Ba elementary school. The education for them was a problem that needed to be solved.

At the same time, Fang Kunyou was worrying about students who were like Wang Ting that lived far away from school. "I'm afraid they would get injured on the way to school."

After heard about students like Wang Ting always fall down on their way to school, Fang Kunyou and other two teachers went up to the mountain and cut off the thorns. It took them three afternoons

to finish the work.

"But this couldn't solve the problem. Students could still be falling down on rainy days." Fang Kunyou started to look for other solutions.

In the end, he came up with an idea that students who were lefted by their parents and students who lived far away from school could all live in school. That would solve all the problems. Fang Kunyou considered living in school as formative education. Students would not be spoiled by their parents and would have appropriate behaviors under the education by teachers.

In fact, boarding school has been existed for a long time. The "China's rural boarding school students survey", which was written by Growing Home, shows that in the basic education period, there are about 32.76 million boarding school students. Elementary school students are about 11 million. Among those 

boarding school students, children who are lefted by their parents composed of 60%.

So they got started.

Picking some fruit and drink some stream water on the way to school

In the middle of March, 2015, Fang Kunyou started his "boarding school experiment" by letting 12 children who lived the farhest away live in school. They lived in the sample room which was constructed by school and started their regular life.

Wang Ting was one of them.

"I felt homesick at first, but then it became okay." said by Wang Ting. Among the twelve kids, the youngest was 6 years old and the eldest was 11 years old. They helped each other and developed friendship.

Wang Ting helped some little boys washing their clothes sometimes. Some other boys would volunteer to clean the dorms.

Fang Kunyou had a plan about what the students could do after school.

"After 4 o'clock, they could join different clubs, such as reading, drawing..." said by Fang Kunyou. There was a drum which was donated by kind-hearted people, students who were interested in could also practice that.

Wang Ting joined a hip-pop dance team named "Qian di ling lu". She practiced the hip-pop dance with her teacher every afternoon. She became pretty good at it after a while.

"There's an hour for studying at night." said by Fang Kunyou. Students could work on their homework during this time. He wished that these children would not only be good at Math and Chinese, but also singing and dancing.

For the students who lived in school, they have breakfast donated by companies, "Free lunch" at noon. However, they should discuss about dinner with their parents. It charged about 100 RMB every month.

Fang Kunyou had noticed the changings among these children. But by the time he wanted to enlarge this plan, an accident ocurred.

The big wind distroyed the roof of the student's sample room. They could no longer be living here. Fang Kunyou borrowed his brother's house as a temporary dorm for them. But this was not a long-lasting solution. This house was not painted and had no decorations. Even the light was hanging on a shelf. The door for girls' dorm was just a board, with some stones outside to prevent the wind blow away the board.

The survey did by Growing Home showed that there was a serious problem in the boarding schools in village. 45% students lived in a dorm which contained 8-16 children. 23% students lived in the dorm which had more
than 16 children. 50% students shared beds with another student. Except all these, the school's dorm was wet and dark, the environment was pretty bad.

This meant, Fang Kunyou faced all the problems that other village schools also faced. The children needed a comfortable dorm immediately.

Fang Kunyou recalled Deng Fei, who was the reporters' manager of Phoenix Weekly and the founder of Free Lunch. Some time before this, Sha Ba elementary school became the first experimental school of Free Lunch. Fang Kunyou was the first principal who cooperated with Deng Fei.

Ideas were coincided

In March, 2011, Deng Fei and Fang Kunyou met each other the first time. "I was in another town in Qian Xi county looking for an experimental school for Free Lunch. But it wasn't successful." said by Deng Fei when he was interviewed by a reporter of Gui Zhou Metropolis Daily. His idea about Free Lunch was not supported by most principals in local schools.

Fang Kunyou was leaded by a volunteer teacher to meet Deng Fei. He said Sha Ba elementary school would like to try Free Lunch. "He was telling about the difficulties and advantages of his school." Deng Fei still remembered Fang
Kunyou, who was kind-hearted, sincere and had ability.

After visiting Sha Ba elementary school, Deng Fei decided to make it the first experimental school of Free Lunch.

After a while, Deng Fei and his team donated money to construct a library for this school. Another program of him, Critical Illness Insurance Program, was started when discovered sick children in Sha Ba elementary school and sent to Beijing for treatment.

Fang Kunyou sent photos to Deng Fei about the students on their way to school. That was in winter, these children were climbing the hill difficultly. The branches on both sides of the road were full of icicles. He also provided several notes that stated some students fell down on the way to school and weren't able to go to school for a while.

"I hope Mr. Deng Fei can help the children build a dorm in school." This was Fang Kunyou's idea. He didn't realize that this idea matched with Deng Fei's earlier idea.

Actually, Deng Fei had come up with this idea a long time ago.

It was in 2013, Deng Fei saw some school dorms made up of cement in Yushu, Qinghai. This required the stones in mountains and gravel in rivers. It destroyed the ecologic environment. Once the school was repealed, these dorms would all be discarded.

Many schools were repealed due to the decreasing number of students in villages. Deng Fei thought, "If we could build a movable dorm, once the school is repealed, the dorm could be moved to another school. It is good for the environment and could save a lot of money."

"I hope the village schools would not only be the place where students study in the future, but also their fairyland which provides them the sweetest memories." said by Deng Fei.

A six-grade-boy went on the stage and sang a song named "Meal". He burst into tears when recalling his situation.

University students designed school dorms

A speech Deng Fei gave in Shenyang Architectual University made his idea about movable dorm came true.

In the speech, Deng Fei explained his idea about movable dorm. A Sophomore named Liu Jiaying went to the speech and heard about the idea. This 21-year-old girl, who was from Tianjin, thought that this idea should be practiced.

She contacted Deng Fei by Wechat, said that she wanted to join his team and work for the movable dorm.

"He only gave me 15 days to design the dorm." said by Liu Jiaying. Deng Fei only had two requirements that the dorm should be movable and replicable.

Liu Jiaying found her schoolmates in Guizhou to learn about the local condition. After that, she found a Senior in her school and three other students thus made up their team. Based on the geographic condition, their team provided three plans. The factory they worked with selected the best plan they considered later.

"Offering the children a second home." This was the team's primary idea. They made dorms based on the idea of containers but not exactly the same.

The benefits of making dorms like containers was that it's easy for transporting and lifting. It also had heat preservation and decorations. It's very comfortable inside and could prevent problems like darkness and wet.

Another detail about this dorm was that it's made of fire-proof material. Even if some children doodle on the wall for fun, it would be easy to clean out. Beside this, this material was better for daylighting.

"Considering of students' hygiene, we also made bathrooms." said by Liang Yu. Except all these, there was a wall for doodling and a storage room.

Deng Fei's requirement about replicability was that if more rooms are needed, they could "clone" the previous rooms. If the dorm should be moved to another school, they can also "copy" it.

Deng Fei called this kind of dorm the "Flying Box".

People donated 190,000 Yuan on Tecent Public Platform in three days. This meant that Sha Ba elementary school would be able to build an original dorm. 

Liang Yu, who is from Shenyang Architectual University, is the designer of the "Flying Box". She is designing the logo for the inauguration on that day with simple implements.

The Second "Flying Box" started

Liu Jiaying became the executive officer of The Flying Box Public Welfare Projects.

On May. 31st, 2015, she started home visiting the first day she came to Sha Ba elementary school. A 6-year-old girl, Qin, impressed her a lot.

Qin was in preschool. She was shy and didn't speak mandarin. She was always by herself before. After living in school with others, her situation had changed a lot. She started to get along with others. "You can see her smile now." said
by Liu Jiaying. This was how group living changed the children. She realized how important the dorm was for a village school.

Liu Jiaying stayed in Guizhou for five days. She fell down once on the way for a home visiting. She had learned some dialect in Guizhou. The most important was, she witnessed the building of dorms.

Fang Kunyou wanted the "Flying Box" to be modernized. He wanted it to have solar energy and free Wi-Fi.

Meanwhile, Deng Fei and his team started to prepare for the second "Flying Box". It was for a school in Hubei province. Deng Fei wanted the students of Huazhong University of Science and Techonology to be the design team this time. University students were more creative and they ususally had time for such a project. Once the plan was ensured, Deng Fei would start collecting money from the platform.

Free Lunch solved the problem of eating for children and the "Flying Box" solved the problem of living. Except these, Deng Fei and his team had other programs like Critical Illness Insurance Program and Current Plan. "Later on, we hope to subsidize the children who just have a single parent." said by Deng Fei.

On June. 3rd, the "Flying Box" program was finished in Sha Ba elementary school.

This "Flying Box" could have 40 students live in. That's exactly the amount of students who were lefted by their parents and students who lived faw away from school.

Throughout application, Free Lunch program agreed to hire a teacher who could take care of the students.

During the inauguration ceremony on that day, a sixth-grade-student went up to the stage and sang a song named "Meal". He started to sob while he was singing "Ordinary people could be extraordinary. Children would be braver." The principal, Fang Kunyou, went up to the stage and hugged him. They both burst into tears.

Under the stage, the audience burst into thunderous applause.

（This article was written by Liu Youqing, the chief reporter of the Guizhou Metropolitan News)