財團法人張榮發慈善基金會

The Chang Yung-Fa Charity Foundation and Evergreen Marine Corp. together donated NT$150,000 to Taiwan Elite International Rescue Association to sponsor expenses for Sunny’s food, healthcare, training and equipment and held the “Sponsorship Ceremony for Sunny Our Rescue Hero” at the Evergreen Plaza Hotel (Tainan) on June 12. Our hero, donning the “Disaster Prevention Education Ambassador” vest which symbolizes honor, strutted onto the stage to the theme from Mission Impossible played by Kunshan Elementary School’s string orchestra. Also invited to the ceremony were the Taiwan Elite International Rescue Association secretary-general, Zhang Bin; Evergreen Marine Corp. chairman, Chang Cheng-Yung; Evergreen Plaza Hotel’s deputy general manager, Lin Yung-Tsun; and Kunshan Elementary School’s principal, Yu Meng-He to witness this educationally significant moment.

On the eve of the second anniversary of the 2015 New Taipei Water Park Fire, the Chang Yung-Fa Charity Foundation along with the Victims Association of the Taiwan 627 Water Park Fire, New Taipei City Government and National Taiwan University Hospital, held a memorial concert today (26th), Evergreen Symphony Orchestra: Salute to Heroes Concert. The concert was a tribute to all the selfless dedication of the anonymous heroes in the 2015 New Taipei Water Park Fire, e.g., medical and nursing staff, firefighting and rescue personnel and social workers and cheer on the fire victims who are still undergoing rehabilitation to date.

Sunny, a five-year-old German Shepard, was at the time of the 0206 Tainan Earthquake rescue operation the only rescue dog trained by the civilian rescue group. At 20 months of age, Sunny obtained his international rescue dog certificate. He passed Taiwan’s advanced rubble search and rescue certification with flying colors and took part in the Kaohsiung Gas Explosion and Tainan Earthquake rescue missions.

Chang Yung-Fa Charity Foundation donated NT$20 million for the rescue relief of the collapsed Tainan Weiguan apartment complex and pushed for a series of disaster prevention tasks including sponsoring Taiwan Elite International Rescue Association’s rescue dogs so that they can perform to their maximum capacity in large-scale disasters. Additionally, the Foundation has many times conducted disaster prevention educational seminars in southern Tainan. Today (20th), the Foundation conducted a disaster prevention educational seminar at Tainan Haidong Elementary School to promote concept regarding disaster prevention and search and donated 10 single-gun projectors worth a total of NT$200,000 to help Haidong Elementary School elevate their info facilities and improve teaching quality.

Taiwan is right on the Circum- Pacific seismic zone. Also due to climate change, earthquakes and torrential rains have become a common occurrence and a nightmare for the Taiwanese. Civilian rescue groups are often held back by limited resources. As such, the Foundation decided to donate rescue trucks to Taiwan Elite International Rescue Association and held a “Rescue Truck Donation Ceremony” at the Evergreen Plaza Hotel (Tainan) on the 27th. The Foundation has also set up the Rescue Strategies Alliance together with GeoThings Inc. to allow relevant departments to keep track of real-time disaster information and arrive at places with the most urgent needs.

Hsinchu County’s Ermei Township had a great harvest of tangors this year which were juicy and sweet. But the need to give people presents declined after the Lunar New Year holiday. Also, schools of all levels postponed resuming the class after the holiday dose to the pandemic. When there was no purchase need for the school meals, the tangor sales went straight down. Currently, many thousands of tonnes of tangors on the farm are waiting to be picked, causing a strain on farmers in remote rural areas.

This year the severe pandemic has impacted and changed our life in many ways. Students in elementary school and junior high schools have all stopped coming to school through to summer vacations in line with the government’s pandemic prevention policies. The Foundation has been sponsoring the Holy Word Foundation Children's Home (the Children’s Home) for some time. The Children’s Home housed 20 children and teens aged 7 to 16. We were informed on the phone that the pandemic had dampened the donation for funds and supplies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been worsening severely in Taiwan resulting in a sharp increase of people being tested, isolated and treated which is in turn draining the pandemic preventive supplies and stressing the medical personnel. In the spirit of “We are in this together against the pandemic” and in the principle of each person doing his/her part of pandemic prevention, the Chang Yung-Fa Charity Foundation’s chairman, Wu Jing-Ming, along with our entire staff, donated 4,000 N95 masks and 300 protective garments and Powered Air-Purifying Respirators to MacKay Memorial Hospital in its frontline combat against the pandemic. We hope to serve as the staunch support for the frontline personnel to protect Taiwan and we believe the clouds will eventually disperse and the sun will shine upon us again.

The pandemic has worsened recently, and New Taipei City and Taipei City are bearing the brunt of it, increasing extra workloads for the frontline police besides exposing them to high risks of virus infection. A good number of the infection cases did break out of late in the police force thus causing a great deal of physical and mental stress among the police personnel.

A 76-year-old retired professor surnamed Ye from Tainan went into the mountains on the 30th of last month to pick mangos in Douliu, Yujing, Tainan, and went missing. His anxious family called the police who along with the firefighting department sent out a search party but to no avail. The TEIRA that the Foundation has been sponsoring for some time, went on the search with rescue dogs and came back with the news on the 11th that Ye’s body was found. Though it was not the best news one could hope for, but at least Ye’s family has been informed.

During the rampant pandemic, the level-3 alert persisted up to two months in Taiwan with over 10,000 infection cases and several hundred deaths. All businesses and sectors could only hang in there, and the welfare groups were faced with the worst crises ever as the donations plummeted like an avalanche.

Taiwan has long been threatened by natural disasters such as earthquakes and torrential rains, and disaster relief and rescue is a critical issue that cannot be overlooked, and disaster relief capacity should be replenished daily so that we can handle all contingencies.