Mooncake Orphanage Charity

Every year, a close friend of mine organizes several charity events for the underprivileged in Vietnam. This time, the charity focused on giving orphanage Vietnamese children a special celebration for the yearly Lantern/Mooncake Festival. The charity received donations in several forms: 1. donations of money to fund the gifts, 2. donations of actual gifts themselves, 3. donations of volunteer manpower to get the large supply of donations gift wrapped and transported to the orphanage, 4. donations of volunteer time to visit the orphanage and spread love (new clothes, toys, and food) to these abandoned children.

On event day, approximately 28 volunteers showed up to entertain, to give hope and to distribute gifts to the orphanage children. The charity organizer was Christine Ngo, a Canadian native who has been living and working in Vietnam for the last two years. She is a devout Buddhist, who has been involved in various business ventures in Vietnam. Her energy level is so high that she spends her downtime creating charities for various small unknown orphanages. The other volunteers consisted primarily of an international crowd; from Japan, USA, Philippines, Australia and of course Vietnamese nationals. The first and larger of the two orphanages visited was at Truong Khuyet Tat 2 (Can Gio district), which was about 60 km (37 miles) outside of Ho Chi Minh City – which took 3.5 hours to reach in a bus driven on poorly maintained country roads.

Once arriving at the orphanage we unloaded all of our goods and were greeted by about 100+ children with their guardians. The children ranged from 6-13 years old. Among the volunteer group was my friend Zion, who was Vietnam born but raised in Australia by his Adoptive Parents. His impressive story involves how he came back to Vietnam at the age of 30 for his first visit. He was interviewed by an Australian National Television network, that wanted to produce a documentary about him returning to Vietnam to find his genetic parents. The Television Network paid for his return trip from Australia to Vietnam, and followed him as he tried to visit places in Ho Chi Minh City that would lead to where his genetic parents could be found. Unfortunately, he never accomplished this goal, but instead remained living in Vietnam for the past year, indulging in the culture of his native heritage. Zion’s participation in our charity event at the orphanage, gave it even more special meaning—since Zion was in a similar circumstance 30 years ago, before becoming adopted by his Australian Parents.

At the end of the long day, our charity leader Christine did a fantastic job. Everyone was tired, sweaty and hungry; but we had nevertheless accomplished something bigger than our toil. We gave to those who really deserved our help.