PA Raises more than $9,500 for China and Myanmar Relief Efforts

June 20, 2008 — Student clubs, faculty and staff from various academic departments and numerous individuals at Phillips Academy joined forces in mid-May to raise money to aid relief and recovery efforts in earthquake-ravaged China and cyclone-ravaged Myanmar. The newly formed group, Phillips Academy for Natural Disasters Aid (PANDA), recently announced it raised $9,685.45 which has been divided among three relief organizations: $4,062 was sent to the American Red Cross for Myanmar Cyclone Relief; $4,162 went to the Red Cross Society of China; and $1,461 to the Amity Foundation, a Christian group working to promote education, social services, health and rural development in China.

Initiated by Andover’s Department of Chinese, the International Club and the Chinese art club called Ink Oasis, the fund-raising effort involved a charity dance and food festival held on the campus in late May. The Oliver Wendell Holmes Library contributed late fees. Individual donors as well as a number of campus clubs also pitched in. The family of alumnus Alvin Yu ’04 and rising senior Stephanie Yu ’09 made a generous donation in honor of their son and daughter by matching the total raised.

International Student Coordinator Susanne Torabi, who along with Chinese department chair Travis Conley, played a particularly active role in organizing fund-raising events, said the PANDA group formed in response to the disasters in Asia and generated “monumental energy and compassion among hundreds of students and faculty.”

“This was true non sibi,” Torabi added, evoking the school’s venerated motto, which translates as “not for self.” A number of Andover students from China who have family and friends in the region were directly affected by The Great Sichuan Earthquake, as it has come to be called. Torabi said several “were deeply saddened and felt so removed, so helpless. They and the 200 students studying Chinese language were the driving force behind the effort.” More than 200 Andover students are either Asian or Asian-American.

The effort was born of distress in the most hectic time of the year—the end of school. In the midst of planning its annual year-end festival and fund-raiser to supplement next year’s budget, the International Club board voted to donate all its earnings to PANDA. Chinese department faculty cooked and donated Chinese food to be sold at the festival—as did several local restaurants. Other campus organizations that joined in included the Andover Chinese Cultural Outreach, the Andover Philanthropic Society, the Asian Society, the Office of Community and Multicultural Development (CAMD), the Chinese Taiwanese Student Association, the Office of Community Service, Ink Oasis, and the Ping Pong Club.

Torabi said she hopes that PANDA will continue to exist, responding to international needs as they arise. Their logo, upper left, was designed by prize-winning student artist Jennifer Fan ’09, who is from Hong Kong.