翼報     翼樂源

50th Anniversary Reunion News #2
Fund Raising

11/28

Dear fellow Lighters,                                     November 27,2008

As you know, our 50^th (Golden) anniversary reunion will take place on November 28 and 30, 2009 as a recent announcement made by Pang Woon Tong.  November 28 is the day for the annual homecoming celebration for all the Pui Ching Alumni.  November 30 is our Lighters’ reunion gala dinner.  These are going to be grand occasions for all of us, having the opportunity to return to the alma mater to meet each other again after we left the place 50 years ago.  The committees, which are responsible for welcoming you, are actively preparing for such an undertaking.  One of them, the fund raising committee, which is co-chaired by Linda Tsang and me, would like to launch the activity, call for the Lighters to give monetary support.  We welcome you to start sending in your contributions as of today, the Thanksgiving Day.  I am thankful that I am still here, expecting to see you next year.

As an un-written tradition, each golden reunion class normally gives money to Pui Ching in 4 areas:

Area 1. Give to the elementary school, which is still under direct governance of Pui Ching.  We can help them with facilities and programs that they see beneficial to the children.  Let me take this opportunity to go through some changes of this funding parameter.  Two years ago at the time of the Australia reunion, the Lighters were asked to donate a classroom to the new and upcoming elementary school building.  We responded with a budget of HK$300,000, which became a part of the reunion funds.  However, this option is not available to us any more, as there are no more classrooms we can donate under the name “Lighter, Class 1959”.  Therefore, we scratched the HK$300,000 from the budget, and replaced it with a HK$100,000 good-will donation to the elementary school instead.

Area 2. Give to the high school, which is a government funded public school.  The pride of being a Pui Ching alumni ties closely to the performance of these young men and women.  Funding to support their programs could help bring up performance in areas of academia, sports, music and social awareness.  Don’t you wish you had these kinds of support when you were in High school? 

Area 3. Give to the Pui Ching Alumni, which is you and me.  Many of us live outside of Hong Kong, Guang Zhou, and Macau.  The experience of being an alumnus is limited to some annual meetings in big cities in the US, Canada, UK and Australia.  The interactions between the Alumni and Pui Ching campuses, although not seen by most of us, are healthy and fruitful.  The return of the Pui Ching registration right and the logo has been the result of the die-hard actions of the alumni.

Area  4.   Give to a reserve fund which would be use to bring retired teachers to the reunion, if monetary support is deemed necessary.

The budgets for all 4 items are:

1. HK$100,000 for the elementary school, 

2. HK$100,000 for the middle school, 

3. HK$100,000 for the Pui Ching Alumni, and

4. Hk$100,000 for the teacher reserve. 

Please remember, these are budgets.   The amount of contribution from you is respectfully your decision and yours alone.  In 2007, many of us have pledged generously.  But since there is a big change in item 1, please feel free to adjust your contributions.  Whatever you would like to do, we still hope that you will continue to give generously.   Linda has a record of your pledges; you can ask her for reference in case you like to refresh your memory.

How to give? 

Option 1.  Give to the Pui Ching Primary School (PCPS) and Middle School (PCMS) via “Give2Asia”.  The advantage of this option is income tax deductible for people who live in Canada or in the US.  SS Lau has helped us setup a donation vehicle called “Give2Asia.  This is a registered US 501 (C3) charity and Canada 149 (1f) foundation organization, which facilitates the transfer of donations from the US and Canada to the Asian countries including Hong Kong.  The donation is income tax deductible for both countries.  However, Give2Asia takes 6% out of the total as commission and handling fees.  When you are ready to donate, go to the website www.give2asia.org, and click the red color tap “Donate Now”.  On the next page click hosted funds.  On the next page click the letter L, you will see the word Lighters Fund.  Click Lighters fund and there will be a page to handle your donation on-line using your credit card.  If you prefer to write a check to save the 3% that is usually charged by a credit card company, you can click next on the same page; an Adobe PDF form will appear. Choose and check “Contribution to Existing Give2Asia Fund”; fill out the form to donate money to Lighters Fund.  Print it out and send with an attached check.  Give2Asia will send you a receipt, which can be use for your income tax return.  SS Lau has donated some money to test the procedures.  Attached in the last page is the receipt he received.  The money we receive will be divided 50-50 to PCPS and PCMS unless you specify the distribution (let both Linda and I know).

Option 2.  Give by writing a US dollar check directly to Lighter.  If you want to give and by-pass Give2 Asia, you can write a US check payable to Luk Chi Chung and send it to Pang Woo Tong at 24A Broadway Street, 13^th Floor, Mei Foo Sun Chuen, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.  Pang will record the check and pass it to Luk who will deposit the money in his US dollar account in HK, and exchange it to HKD.  Please don’t be alarmed by this procedure – why give a check to Luk?  Firstly, we have to understand that opening a US dollar account by an organization is extremely difficult and costly in Hong Kong – everybody knows it.  Secondly, the US dollar account under Luk’s name has been used for many past occasions for Lighter events.   Thirdly, there is no need to pay any handling charge to exchange USD to HKD with Luk’s account.  The HKD will go to the Lighters Hong Kong account (see Option 4)

Option 3.   Give by writing a Canadian check directly to the Lighter, by-pass Give2Asia.  Please write a check payable to Luk Chi Chung and send it to Lo Ting Ching at Unit 1311,28 Sommerset Way,North York,Ontario, M2N 6W7,Canada..   Lo will record the check and deposit it in Luk’s Toronto account; Luk can transfer the Can$ to Hong Kong.  The HKD will go to Lighters Hong Kong account (see Option 4)

Option 4.   Give by Lighters living in Hong Kong and other non-US, non-Canada locations.  You can write a check in HKD, British pounds, or Australia dollars payable to Luk Chi Chung and send the check to Pang Woo Tong at the same address above (see option 2).  Pang will record the check and give it to Luk.  Luk will deposit the check to the Lighter HK account.  This account was set-up by 6 lighters eighteen years ago.  This is Lighter’s work-horse bank account; Lawrence Wong is the book –keeper and treasurer.  The money collected from all sources will be funneled into this account.

All contributions will be recorded and tallied by Lawrence Wong and report to Choi and Tsang who would write thank-you notes to acknowledge your generosity.  Amount of contributions will be handled confidentially.  Procedures and transactions will be transparent.