Three years, Eggschange has traveled down to the impoverished Guanpi Village in Jiangxi and three times they have come across very different images. Through the trials and tribulations, Eggschange stood the test of time, boldly facing every challenge given to them. And as a result of the club's hard work, Guanpi Village has drastically changed from the poverty-stricken village it once was. This can't be better explained than through my own experience on two of the trips.
Walking down the pebbled path to a farmers house, I thought of the old muddy path which i slipped on only a year back.The chickens were scattered across a vast expanse, freely roaming around. A small chicken coop built within the past year gave them a place to stay at night when they were previously homeless. A small hole within the coup let chickens enter and leave as they pleased. As the farmers tried to explain to us all the changes they made, I realized it was more than just what had changed with more money. They had learned to be more responsible. They learned to take care of their chickens, to prioritize them over listening to the radio or relaxing at home. Each week, they all headed towards one of their houses to collect the eggs and package them for delivery. They worked together, each person contributing in their own way. The way that they worked was strange, since I always thought that they would be individually packaging, or sending their eggs to one person. This was not what was happening, they were coming together as a community, and we as a club were helping them create that community. We always talk about changing the lives of people. It’s practically the motto of every inspirational speaker, to lead, to make a difference. It’s also what lots of the clubs and charity organizations market, and we’ve heard it so many time’s we’ve already become desensitized. We’ve forgotten the core reasons behind helping others, the impact people actually can make. In Eggschange I don’t think we’re helping just a couple of farmers anymore, we’re helping to create a community. The wonderful student volunteers behind The EggsChange Project headed out to the country last week, to see the farms and meet the producers who have benefited from their micro-financing venture which supports farmers to set up organic egg farms.
The EggsChange tour was led by egg-loving Shanghai American School student JinJin Xu, who came up with the idea for the project after traveling with her family to some rural areas of China and seeing the poverty there first-hand. JinJin was one of our School Ground Green Heroes in Shanghai Family’s April issue, and a very worthy bearer of that title. The group made their way by train to Jianxi Province, home to many poor rural communities, where the students had the chance to observe the farmers’ lives firsthand and see how their project is working on the ground, while also getting to know the local children. Of course, there was some chicken patting and egg collecting to be done as well. Farmers who become involved in EggsChange receive 50 chicks, chicken feed and instructions on how to produce their eggs free-range and organic, but most importantly, they also are guaranteed a price and market for their eggs. If you’re hankering for real farm fresh eggs, EggsChange does classroom deliveries at SAS Puxi and Pudong campuses, plus home deliveries in Greencourt, Westwood, Forest Manor, SRC, Rancho Santa Fe, and other locations in Gubei. For information take a look at their website - eggschange.weebly.com – or email on [email protected] The wholesale price of eggs in Beijing Xin Fadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market on Sunday was 10.2 yuan per kilogram, an increase of 57 percent from the price on May 1 of 6.48 yuan. [Photo: secutimes.com]The price of eggs has jumped to 5 yuan per kilogram in nearly a month, Securities Daily reported on Monday.
The wholesale price of eggs in Beijing Xin Fadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market on Sunday was 10.2 yuan per kilogram, an increase of 57 percent from the price on May 1 of 6.48 yuan. Xinhua News Agency and National Agricultural Market System of Agricultural Price Monitoring data shows that, the price of eggs in some areas has increased more than 20 percent over the past 10 days, including areas in Tianjin, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Henan and Ningxia. According to industry analysts, the main reason for the price hike is a short-term supply shortage. The number of egg-laying hens fell due to tumbling egg prices last November. Also, egg-laying capacity has been affected, supposedly by high temperatures. To add to the problem, farmers are holding out for higher prices during the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival. "Disease has decimated egg-laying hens in some areas," said Shu Anli, an analyst at Shen Nong, a website for agricultural market information. "But in terms of egg-laying hens changing the price of eggs, the supply for the national egg market is adequate this year." Data from the Xin Fadi Market website shows that the wholesale price of garlic on Sunday reached 8.2 yuan per kilogram, up 49 percent from the price on May 31 due to the drought in the northern fields. Still, industry insiders believe that this sudden rise in food prices is indicative of the downward trend of China's consumer price index (CPI) in May, a major gauge for inflation which will be released by the National Bureau of Statistics on June 9. Food prices weigh heavily into the calculation of the CPI. source: http://english.cri.cn/6909/2012/06/04/2821s703701.htm Today we went to The North America Auto Convention. We were really looking forward to going because this event is where it all started- a year later, it is still fresh in my mind. One year ago, we had just thought of this project and had absolutely no money and no idea how we would proceed with our idea. We were clueless whether this seemingly out of reach idea would actually work, if people would be interested to hear about it and support us. We heard about this event from Alex Zhuang, whose dad is one of the organizers. Ryan Chen and Weilin tuye and I excitedly prepared brochures, chinese and english proposals and even a raffle for us to advertise at the event. We gave a speech on the stage in front of more than 300 people and then went around to each table collecting donations. It was the first time I had to explain my idea to strangers and it was terrifying. I was really scared of facing rejection and it felt like a direct punch when people refused to donate or waved us off when we tried to approach them. Holding back tears and forcing a smile, I soon realized that for every two or three people that rejects us, there is always a kind hearted stranger who would take the time to listen to our cause and donate. Some even kindly gave us suggestions and their contact information on how to reach them for help in the future. It was exhilarating to hear that my weird, impossibly far fetched idea could actually generate interest. We ended up raising over 4,000 RMB. This year, we went to the event on a short notice. Although we were told we would not have a chance to speak on stage we were determined to go to thank all the people who supported us a year ago and to show them that their kindness went to support a great cause. 96 boxes of eggs just arrived this morning and I was excited to sell most of them before next week's shipment. My goal: to sell ALL of them!! It did not go off to a great start, when Yiping Lin, Weilin Tuye and I arrived at the event, we were harangued by the organizer because we had not officially notified them ahead of them about our participation. She was annoyed and was very reluctant to help us so we had to find tables and supplies to set up our egg booth ourselves. Luckily, the hotel staff was very helpful and helped us set up in an area next to the entrance. We introduced people to eggschange and our on sell eggs and managed to sell a few boxes as people came in. However, soon the event began and we had nothing to do sitting outside. So we went in and approached a couple tables, most people responded with an impatient wave of their hands or simply averting their eyes. The worst experience was when we went to the "vip" table and the man rudely cut us off and said "go to another table", he made me pretty sad and I realized I hadn't grown as tough skinned as i thought. The event went poorly for us compared to last year, probably because we did not get a chance to speak on stage so we surprised a lot of people and they may of thought we were scammers.... On the bright side, a fair amount of people remembered us from last year and are willing to try our eggs. Best of all, we ran into our "mentor" Goodwin Wang who we met at the event last year, he had given us a lot of valuable advice before and had sponsored our website. We had recently lost touch but we set up a meeting with him for this friday:) Most disappointing of all, we waited until 9:30 outside the ballroom because a lot of people we talked to said they will come outside to buy our eggs after the event is over. After hearing the music stop after a while we realized that something was wrong and the event seemed to be over. We went in and were shocked to find that most of the people have already left through ANOTHER entrance, we had waited the whole night for NOTHING! In silence, we packed up our untouched egg boxes: we sold 14 boxes (gave goodwin two for free) and was very far from my original goal. In all it was a very disappointing day for me but I guess there are bound to be failures at times.
by Jennifer GuHi Everyone! From this week onwards we're going to make our break time meetings a lot more productive! As you know from the email, we will be splitting everyone up into separate committees, such as the Kinder Eggs Committee, the Weekly Egg Sales Committee, the Charity Committee, the Newsletter Committee, and the Elementary School Committee :) So everyone, you guys really do have be on time for the meetings, because you don't just have to deliver eggs, we do expect you guys to contribute to your committees, especially the Kinder Eggs Committee, which is going to get really busy soon, because it's coming up, and we really want to publicize our kinder eggs and create a sort of hype for them before we start selling massively! :) Also, we've created a weibo and boke for Eggschange! As JinJin said, it's pretty much Chinese twitter, it's really popular among the local chinese community, and we're hoping that through this we can get lots more publicity, not just more new subscribers, but also as another way other charities can get to know us! =D So, if you have a weibo, or your parents do, please follow us! And.. as you all know, our previous point system, was a little dysfunctional, just a little.. xD but we are going to be improving on that! From now on, we're going to keep a close record on all the things that you contribute to Eggschange, in order to add up your points, and there will be exciting prizes waiting for you!!! (soon to be announced!)
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