wfn.org | Churches, organizations use tamales to love, support disadvantaged children

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3042 Edition

>June 14~June 20, 2010

Churches, organizations use tamales to love, support disadvantaged  children

>Reported by Chen Wei-chien

>Written by Lydia Ma

YMCA’s Changhua district has been reaching out to children  from disadvantaged

families by offering after-school tutoring and character education  classes. 
This year, the

organization decided to raise funds to buy tamales for these  children in time 
for Dragon

>Boat Festival.

Chinese tamale, or rice dumpling, is a traditional Chinese food  made of 
glutinous rice

stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves and  it’s usually 
cooked by

steaming or boiling. Tamales are commonly given as gifts during  Dragon Boat 
Festival,

which falls on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese  calendar or 
sometime in May

>or June.

YMCA staff began raising funds to buy tamales since April because  they hoped 
that

giving out tamales would help children from disadvantaged families  to truly 
enjoy this

special holiday and feel that they’re loved by others.

In the end, though they only planned to raise enough funds for 14  families 
whose children

were in their programs, they wound up raising enough money to buy  over 13,000

tamales to give to more than 500 disadvantaged families in less  than 2 months. 
These

delicacies were all distributed by June 9 to all these families.

YMCA Changhua district General Secretary Chen Chi-chih said this  is his first 
time

organizing a tamale fundraiser. Though many people may wonder  whether tamales 
will

really help poor families at all, the main purpose behind this  gifting is to 
celebrate and

prevent children from feeling left out or depressed during holiday  season 
because of

>their dire circumstances.

Chen added that when these children got word that they’d be  getting tamales, 
they

asked their teachers again and again when they’d get to eat  tamales. Their 
anticipation

inspired volunteers to try even harder in their fundraising  efforts. They 
sought support

from local police stations, government offices, markets, friends,  Erlin 
Presbyterian

>Church and other local churches.

Similarly, volunteers from Erlin Happy Christian Homes (an  orphanage founded 
by the

late missionary Joyce MacMillan) have staged fundraisers during  every Dragon 
Boat

Festival for the past 6 years. Usually, they haul loads of  ingredients needed 
to make

tamales to the orphanage and wrap tamales themselves.

On June 11, about 80 women volunteers gathered at Happy Christian  Homes as 
early as

4:00 a.m. to make tamales and live out their love for children  through 
carefully wrapped

tamales. The cost of all the ingredients was already paid for by  supporters of 
the

orphanage, making this venture a joint effort between those who  have cooking 
skills and

>those who have financial resources.

The women first soaked glutinous rice in water before stir-frying  it with 
other ingredients

and then skillfully wrapping the mix with bamboo leaves. They  divided up many 
cooking

and preparation tasks among them and managed to produce 7,000  delicious 
tamales.

Besides distributing 1,300 tamales to financially strapped  families living 
near the center,

volunteers also bought some daily supplies to give to these  families. Local 
schools,

churches, and firms supported this ministry by buying the rest of  the tamales. 
Proceeds

from these sales will go toward meeting the needs of disabled  children living 
in Happy

Christian Homes, those who’ve recently “graduated”  from the center to study 
elsewhere,

in addition to disadvantaged families living in the area.

>********************

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