On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkey, and many of us were touched by the tragic footage of the earthquake being shown on television news. Although the earthquake occurred in Turkey, thousands of miles away, it is probably because I visited it once last year, and everyone began to care about the ordinary people who were affected by the disaster.
On February 10, Brother Duan called me, saying that seeing the huge disaster caused by the earthquake, the suffering of the people, felt very uncomfortable, and suggested whether it was possible to make a donation call in the WeChat group in Turkey last time, and everyone reached out to help.
I drafted a short article stating that the list of donations would not be published, that everyone would be voluntary, and that there would be no pressure. Grace reposted the original article to another WeChat group she led that had traveled to Turkey.
Most of these two groups are Chinese friends in the local area and know each other a little.
Lao Li also turned in his WeChat friend sharing, and several friends who had never been to Turkey immediately transferred 1-2 hundred US dollars.
It is very unlikely that we will go to Turkey in the future, and donating some money is completely out of our hearts, hoping that the suffering Turkish people will suffer less.
I hoped to receive a donation of 1,000 dollars, but I didn't expect to end up with $3746, which is a small donation.
But for Turkey alone, this amount of money is still a drop in the bucket.
We remembered Mr Sedat, whom we met on our last trip. He turned out to be a university teacher, and we felt that he had good character and was reliable.
Contacted by him, it turns out that he has been busy with disaster relief these days, and also learned that his hometown is in the earthquake zone, and many relatives and friends have suffered serious losses.
He was very moved when he heard that we overseas Chinese had donated, but at first he did not agree to accept it, and suggested that it be donated directly to government organizations such as the Red Cross. This is not quite in line with our original intention.
I consulted with the elder, Grace, and let Sedat decide how to help his compatriots, in whatever form.
Sedat took his job very seriously, and he divided the donation into six parts, helping 12 families in each of them, stating that it was a donation from a group of Chinese-American friends in Sacramento, all of which have now been in place.
In the process of handing over the donation to Sedat, Ms. Zuli, a small Uyghur villager from Xinjiang that we met last time in Turkey, helped a lot. She and her husband, who graduated from Xinjiang University, also participated in the disaster relief work and donated a lot of materials. I asked her to advance the money first, and then asked a friend who was traveling to bring the cash over. There are fees on both sides of the bank, and there are also implications for Sedat tax filing.
For more than a month, Sedat has been in contact with me and Grace to report on his actions in the relief effort, as well as the arrangements for the donation, with all transfers being invoiced and recorded.