財團法人張榮發慈善基金會

The severe COVID-19 pandemic has persisted for years and has impacted all sectors of industry. Many charity organizations have also encountered difficulties in fundraising, making operations extremely challenging. During the annual Mid-Autumn Festival, social welfare organizations hope to relieve their dire financial plight through charity sales of Mid-Autumn Festival gift boxes, but due to the general economic downturn, corporate orders have shrunk, making this year's Mid-Autumn Festival merchandise purchase unpopular.

The pandemic continued to spread causing people in Taiwan lots of anxiety. The medical staff being at the front-line pandemic prevention had a mentally stabilizing presence and safeguarded our health. The confirmed cases had drastically increased in the past few months, rapidly expanding the medical supplies. Dealing with high-risk confirmed cases, the medical staff were constantly exposed to hazardous environments and thus required adequate pandemic preventative equipment in order to protect themselves and others.

This May saw a sudden and drastic increase of confirmed cases all over Taiwan. Yet Veterans’ Service Department of Taipei City could not pause their service to veterans, as they were mostly vulnerable and elderly, which made them the high-risk group for pandemic infection, and would extra help and attention from society.

In response to the need of those in home quarantine, Keelung set up the "Home Care Center". But within one month, the confirmed cases of infection shot up from 100 plus to an average of 2,000 plus cases a day resulting in a huge increase of people in isolation and mounting workload in the Home Care Center. To show support from society towards the pandemic prevention personnel, Chang Yung-Fa Charity Foundation teamed up with Evergreen Laurel Hotel (Keelung) to root for the frontline Home Care Center staff with the hotel’s custom-made exquisite bread box.

Natural disasters are constant across the globe. Year 2021 saw flash floods in Europe, heat waves in the west coast of North America and heavy rains in Henan, China. Natural disasters have not only caused environmental catastrophes but also seriously impacted the economy. In early 2020, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) issued the Green Swan alert, pointing out that the extreme impact caused by the large-scale climate change may exceed expectations, as has become an issue to be faced by all sectors.

Most social welfare groups would all wish for their moon cake gift packs to peak around the annual Mid-Autumn Festival so as to fund their services for the mentally and physically disabled. But the pandemic in the past two years has impacted the economy and caused the donations to plummet, which makes it harder for the charities to rely on the sales of Mid-Autumn Festival gift packs to boost their income. Zhaoxing Power Activation Center commented that the pandemic has caused many companies to reduce all expenses. Also, the pandemic prevention measures have prevented their sales staff from meeting with suppliers. All factors considered, the orders for gift packs have dwindled.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.