Philanthropist Roz Koo came to the U.S. from Shanghai in 1947. (See post one). She spent a lifetime working in the corporate world. When she retired, she turned her organizational talents to building non-profits. She built a senior center for low-income residents of S.F., and an activity center in San Mateo. She also worked on projects with China, helping to restore McTyeire school in Shanghai to its former glory, helping young students stay in school, and working in conjunction with the China All Women's Federation and the 1990 Institute to send the poorest of the poor through elementary school. They identified 1000 girls, because "If you educate a woman, you educate an entire generation." (See posts two, three, four.)
“First time I went to see the girls," said Roz. "They burst out crying. They didn’t
know what to do."
So Roz found more funding to send these girls onto middle school.
On top of academics, Roz insisted that they all do community service. “The schools thought, 'What do you want to do this for?' In China, you always take care of your relatives. That’s your duty. But there’s no concept of a civic duty to help the community.”
Roz turned the idea of civic duty into a contest. She gave out prizes of a hundred dollars to those who came up with the best project. One girl decided her community project would be to clean up her street.
“She started with her side of the street. Everyone laughed at her saying, ‘Why do you want to do that?’ But everyday she went out and cleaned her side of the street. The neighbor across the street decided she would do a little cleaning up on her side. Pretty soon the whole street was very clean.”
While community service for the middle school girls was optional, Roz required the senior high school students to do a community service project and file a report if they wanted to be considered for college.
The first group of graduates finished college in 2014. “Each kid, I gave them two chances to take college. You fail one time, you try another time.” At the same time, she offered them two tracks—an academic track and a vocational track. The vocational students are trained in health care, computer science and nursery-school education. Of the original 1000 girls, 172 went on to get college degrees.
After these women graduated, Roz asked them to return to their village and give back. “People majoring in education, I gave them a stipend to make them a teaching fellow to go back to their hometown to teach. I wanted them to re-connect. Then the medical ones--they have to have five years in school--so I give them one year to go back. Then they are free to do whatever they want.”
While the Spring Bud Program is technically finished—and Roz
physically can’t make the trip to China anymore—flowers have already begun to
bloom. Recently one of her graduates identified an issue that needed attention.
She went to teach pre-school and noticed that the students—150 of them—were all
undernourished. She turned to Roz for help.
“The central government –as a way to stimulate the
economy—had decided to build preschools. But it’s the hardware, nothing else.
No food. No toys. No heat. It’s typical. They rely on the locals to do
whatever. The locals are still very, very poor.
“Next week I’ll go raise money to heat up the classrooms.
It’s six degrees below zero inside the classrooms. So how can the students go to school?”
In addition Roz has agreed to provide breakfast to the
students for a year, to build an on-site kitchen for next year. Who is designing this kitchen? One of her
graduates in architecture. Who is measuring the children’s health improvement?
One of her graduates in medicine.
Said Roz with a smile, “What goes around comes around.”
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