By Shirley Yumin Tan

Mike Ting and his team hosted a dinner party on February 26th to support Wokai, an organization aims to provide loans for small businesses and creates opportunity for those living in poverty in rural China.  

It was a very successful event with more than 40 people attended the party.  There were 7 dinner courses presented, including oyster pancake with chive, charollte roll with cream frache, charollte roll with cream frache, chicken and veg dumpling with dijion mustard sauce and many more.  The food was so amazingly delicious that everything was gone as soon as every dish came out.  All the guests were mingling and having a good time during this meaningful dinner event with all the donation and money proceeds to support Wokai organization.

Mike and his team were busy in the kitchen preparing the dinner the whole night.  It was funny that Mike didn’t want anyone to come in to the kitchen as it was a bit messy after they cooked and served the food for more than 40 people.  As Mike’s friend, I was able to sneak in and did an interview with him.  I knew it was the fourth time he organized this type of charity dinner event.  I asked him why he is willing to do this and Mike proudly said, it’s the minimum I can do to raise money to help whoever is in need of helps in rural China and he feels great to be able to make a difference in promoting the idea to his friends.  With the money he can raise a night like 200 dollars, it can be used to help someone to start his business.  Also, it is not just about the money, but the initiative in supporting the community and be able to contribute.

During the event, I had a chance to speak to the volunteers of New York Chapter of Wokai, Edgar Cabrera and Kaijia Gu. They both work in the financial industry in New York City.  Edgar said he is always interested in microfinance and he actually worked for Kiva, a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty when he was a student in New York University.  Edgar and Kaijia then volunteer to help organizing events to support Wokai’s mission since they both would like to help Chinese people in rural China to seek opportunities to change their living conditions.  Edgar told me during our conversation that he firmly believes that everyone deserves a chance to change his/her life even though he/she might grow up or live in a poor neighborhood.

Shirley’s article was first picked up by Nuzcom and we hope everyone who has seen this article can share with your friends about the wonderful charity event and possibly join them next time!  To know about more the non-profit organization, please visit Wokai.org and if you would like to join the next event, please contact AsianInNY’s beautiful reporter Shirley!

(Fashion designer Janet Zheng, beautiful reporter Shirley Tan)