Although four years have passed, the people in Sichuan province are still reeling from the affects of the Wenchuan Earthquake. Beichuan County, neighboring the epicenter, was almost destroyed completely. Today, the Beichuan people still haven’t recovered from the disaster. The Beichuan High School has suffered the most; the 2008 earthquake caused more then 1000 deaths within the school community.

Four years on, the Beichuan High School Choir was almost unable to perform at the China International Chorus Festival, a great chorus gala held in Beijing this year, due to a lack of funding for the exclusive trip.

With the goal of helping the choir to realize their dream, a Sichuan native, and famous Chinese tenor Fan Jingma, decided to start a fund for the choir. He decided to collect the donations online, mobilizing support through Weibo (a Chinese microblog site). With the helpof an online auction, Fan reached the RMB80000 goal that would send the kids to Beijing.

All the donations were small in sum, coming from the vast community of Internet users in China and beyond. One man donated his classical CD collection, auctioned for RMB 2,000; an American woman donated US$500 with a card saying that she was happy to provide “a little help”; and a high school student in the north-east city of Changchun, collected 166 Yuan form his class.

By June 15th, only two weeks after the call for donations began, the fund reached the goal, raising RMB 80516.56. Once the organizer of the China International Chorus Festival heard the news, they waived their entry fee, and sent a chorus professional to help them with their rehearsals.

The China International Chorus Festival was held on July 15 and the Beichuan High School Choir was one of the lucky few invited to perform in the opening ceremony. They showed-off the traditional music, dance and costumes of the Chinese Miao ethnic group.

The choir also joined in the festival competition and they left Beijing with broad smiles, very proud of their achievements.

By Li Luyang