talk 783

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 it 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; it worked. 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, 13th 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.
Thank you.