5 Year Anniversary Documentary
18th December 2010

On the 18th of December '10 we celebrated the Soup Kitchen's 5th Anniversary. To mark the occasion our volunteers made a short documentary by compiling a series of brief interviews with some volunteers and some of our street friends that regularly attend the Soup Kitchen. Many of whom we have known for several years.

5 Year Anniversary Celebration
18th December 2010

A short collection of memories set to music, typifying 12 months at the Yellow River Soup Kitchen.

Hu Jia Yao Village School Projects
24th/25th October & 7th November 2009

We have just completed two projects in Lan Tian in a poor rural mountain village. The local village school had up to 50 children age 6-9 with just one teacher all day everyday. The first of the projects was over two days when we repaired the school. We provided electricity to the classroom, lighting as there was none, 2 heaters and enough coal for the winter, notebooks and pens etc and a library, put glass in all the windows and metal gauge to protect them and then painted the classroom. In the evening we put on an outside film for all the village and finally distributed clothing to the children. Then on the 7th December we returned and organised a sports day and fair for the 80-100 children of the village. We took 29 & 33 volunteers for the two events and it was an amazing two weekends for everybody involved and probably the best projects we have run to date.

To watch the short video of the weekend we spent with the children repairing the school see below.

Hu Jia Yao Sports Day & Fair
7th November 2009

After renovating the village school we returned to the village two weeks later and organised the first sports day the children have ever taken part in. It was attended by up to 100 village children ranging from around 5 to 17 years old.

4th Year Birthday Celebration, A Summary of Our Various Projects in 2009

For a celebration of the Yellow River Charity's 4th birthday below is a brief movie of our various projects that we have run in 2009. Including of course our long term projects of delivering food at the Soup Kitchen and around the city streets, regular first aid, delivery of aid to rural villages and some new projects started this year when we renovated a mountain village school in Lan Tian and then organised the first of an annual sports day. Projects which we expect to run again in other similar locations in 2010.

To watch the 4 minute video see below.

Street Distribution of Winter New Quilts, Overcoats & Long johns 2009
23rd & 27th November 2009

Each winter we take to the streets of Xi'an and distribute new quilts, overcoats and long johns to the homeless as they sleep. Finding them on the streets at night may be a much more difficult and time consuming way to distribute, each night teams were out until 2am and 1am respectively, but we can learn so much in the process. Where the homeless sleep, what conditions they live in, what problems they may be facing that we weren't aware of, if there are any new people that we are currently not serving at our Soup Kitchen, and even how many people that we do serve are genuinely homeless and are living on the streets. We find the number is in excess of 90% of the people we serve are genuinely on the streets which is a great experience for all of our volunteers to see for themselves as there is still a lot of doubt and cynicism amongst the general population that the homeless are cheats and are really wealthy people who don't need help.

Wen, a long standing volunteer, put together a short video of our nights around the streets of Xi'an in the cold and the rain distributing new quilts, overcoats and long johns to over 140 homeless people.

To watch the 2 minute video see below.

Homeless Christmas Party 2009
26th December 2009

This year our Christmas party was attended by 200 homeless people and 50 volunteers, serving 70 kg of chinese dumplings, soup, eggs, fruit, drinks and cake. Featuring live music and dancing it was as usual a wonderful evening for all.