As a staff benefit, the BSC Group trade union organised a free summer camp this year for employees' families with school-age children, giving the children a fuller holiday and easing childcare pressure on parents. The programme included a community service outing.
Community service is a way of life and a lesson in personal growth, and the outing was designed to let the children meet people from different backgrounds and learn understanding and respect. On the morning of 3 August 2019 the campers visited the Beijing Hongyuan Qizhi Tangshan Rehabilitation Centre, a school for students with intellectual and physical disabilities aged from 9 to 35. Though many of the students cannot express themselves clearly, they greeted the visitors with bright smiles.
Principal Li Yanyan welcomed the children and said the school's progress depended on the care of supporters in the community, whose warmth and help had brought it to where it is today.
Student representatives then performed the song "Mother in the Candlelight" and the dance "Grateful Heart", moving many of the visitors to tears with the feeling and eagerness they put into their performance.
Each camper had prepared a small gift before the visit,
and now handed it happily to the older students as a token of goodwill,
and of friendship.
The campers and students then made handmade soap together, preparing the soap base, adding food colouring, fragrance and flower petals, pouring it into moulds and waiting for it to set. Everyone took each step seriously, and the process felt like a small contribution to the students' future.
The school presented each camper with a certificate recognising their effort. It was a different kind of certificate, one that recorded the children's kindness and their discovery of their own ability to make a difference.
In the afternoon a charity auction was held, and the campers used their pocket money to bid for the soap made that morning, raising 2,000 yuan. The proceeds were sent to the Fengnan Hongyuan Qizhi special education school to support its
development.
Community service is about taking part, not just giving. By bringing the children of employees to take part in this activity, the BSC youth volunteer service centre gave them a positive experience of helping others and the best gift a child can receive: a warm and caring heart.