PhD Student, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, UF
yiwei1312@gmail.com
About me:
Howdy folks! I am Yi Wei, a third year PhD student in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. I first heard of Asha from my buddy Vishal. I never see him spending money on anything. I think if it weren’t for saving time, he would probably swim back to India to visit his parents. But he is also the same guy who dedicated so much of his time and money to Asha. As I joined in more and more Asha events, I began to understand why. This is a great group of people contributing to a great cause. I always believe in the importance of helping others, but just like I also believe in the importance of vacuuming my room, I have not been doing that often enough. So, this is me trying…… not to become a better person or anything, but just trying to do what feels right!
My Running experience
I enjoy strength training, hiking and biking. But I have never run for long distance before. The longest run I have finished so far is training session with Asha for this Gate River Run. To me, the 15K could be a real challenge. I don’t know how people are running full marathons in their 70s, they were probably either super-human or they raised too much money for Asha that they couldn’t really back off.
My Request
If you are happy to see me challenging myself with the 15K and doing it for a great cause, please share your joy by donating to Asha. If for some reason you just enjoy seeing me physically and mentally torture myself with a 15K, please also show that via donating. If you don’t know why a Chinese guy, studying in US, is trying to get people to donate to kids in India for their education, you are not alone. I don’t quite understand myself either. I have made charitable donations to organizations in both China and US before for different causes. But this time it might be the largest donation I have ever made/raised. I guess after being exposed to people from all over the world, I realized that we are more similar than different. When I heard about how much we could do through Asha, I was only thinking about helping the kids. I just forgot about what language they speak and where they are from. They deserve opportunities to succeed in life, just as much as we do. But they are not getting those opportunities. It is up to us to help leveling the playing field. We can help by donating to Asha and providing basic education to those in need. A little help from you goes a long way. I have spent 20 dollars on a pair of shoes that I dreamt of when it was on a 90% off discount, I have spent 20 dollars on a sushi buffet that I thoroughly loved and I probably had too much sushi that day, but none of those 20 dollars felt more “worth it” to me than the time I made my first 20 dollar donation to Asha (If you know me, you know how much I love a good buffet and shoes on great discount……). So, if you feel that I have not completely cheapened this by talking about shoes and sushi buffet, please share your love for the kids in need by donating to Asha for Education (AfE).
Asha for Education
Asha for Education (AfE) is a secular, volunteer-driven organization dedicated to bringing about socio-economic change in India by focusing on basic education for ALL. The organization has supported more than 850 such projects across the country and disbursed more than USD 25 Million in the last 20 years. To learn more about AfE, please visit: http://www.ashanet.org
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