Jinjiang established a Charity Federation on Dec 18, 2002, as China’s first county-level charity organization. The following year, Dec 18 was designated annual Charity Day. Now, every year, government officials, school staff, students, and employers perform lion dances, dragon dances, fan dances or waist drum beating across the city to solicit donations from the public.
In 2002, the donations totaled more than 100 million yuan and, by Dec 1, 2011, the amount exceeded 1.2-billion yuan, with 600 million marked for social welfare. In 2011, Jinjiang spent 140-million yuan on charity projects, helping children from impoverished families go to school and for helping raise orphans, and more than 100,000 people benefited in education and health.
That same year, Jinjiang established a service center for teenagers, and the charity federation has offered 1-million yuan teenage children of migrant workers. As the economy develops charity grows as well, and the awareness of philanthropic behavior has become deeply embedded in Jinjiang society.
