Through out our time in China we have had the opportunity to be actively involved in community service. Here are some of our activities:

YEP English Shanghai

In August of 2010 Mrs. Whitehead, Ms. Chandler and Irrey Zhang, Josh Lange and I lead a group of students for a week long trip teaching English to Migrant School in Jin Shan district.  We taught English, PE, art, music, math and science all incorporating English instruction. Highlights of the trip included the students at the school completing their first ever science lab, and the school being upgraded to a normal Chinese school. It will now receive the standard amount of  funding from the Chinese government. Click here to see more about this trip.

Jin Shan Migrant School

We take students out to teach English and other subjects at the Jin Shan Migrant School.  I am helping organize a week long trip (interim) as well as monthly trips through out the school year. We have also done additional projects at the school such as upgrading the library, improving science instructions, helping the school make better use of its computers as well as teaching English, PE, music and art.

Building Libraries

The Spanish Honor Society has raised a lot of money for various charities during the past few years including: money for Yunnan Education Project, Money for Earth Quake and Tsunami Victims, helping members of our community that run into difficult times due to the loss of a loved one. However, the project that I am most happy with is the Latin Cook book project. My wife, Mrs. Whitehead wrote out her family recipes (from Mexico) our Spanish Honor Society with plenty of help from others created a cook book from this in 3 languages complete with an eye catching design and pictures of the dishes made. We then sold the cook book in the community and raised enough money to build three libraries for underprivileged students.

Water projects

On two occasions I had the privilege of leading groups of students out to Yunnan Province (the poorest province in China) to spend a week digging ditches and laying pipes to bring running water to villages. These projects were very satisfying because we could look back after a week of work and see what had been accomplished. It is also remarkable that for only a week of work for about 20 students and teachers as well as a modest donation in money, we were able to bring about a change in life style for the 50 or so villagers each time. The average family spent 2 hours a day obtaining water before our trip. This need was eliminated by our efforts. It was really an uplifting experience to see the looks on the villagers faces when they saw water running in their villages.

Building a Church

When I moved to Shanghai in 2002 there were no places of worship in English with in an hour drive from where we live. I joined a team that successfully petitioned the government and opened a church with an English speaking parish. I helped open the church and served on the parish council for seven years. The church now is the place of worship for more than 400 English speaking families each weekend as well as hosting a Chinese speaking Parish. Here is a link to the church: http://www.sacredheartpudong.com/