Amway staff do their bit for quake victims

Jeff Han spent this year's Lantern Festival, a traditional time for family reunions, in Beichuan, a county in Sichuan province that was devastated by the May 12 earthquake.

Han was a member of the quake-relief volunteer team of Amway China, who made Yuanxiao, a traditional festive food of rice balls with a sweet filling, with local elderly people who had lost their children in the quake, and enjoyed local cultural performances with them.

"This is not the first time we've been there since the quake, and we are very happy and excited to see that the local people have rebuilt their homes and started to recover psychologically," said Han.

Besides millions of yuan in corporate donations, volunteers' participation in earthquake rescue and post-quake reconstruction has been a major aspect of Amway's efforts.

So far, over 35,000 Chinese employees of the world's leading healthcare products direct retailer have got involved in rescue activity, material and equipment delivery, epidemic prevention and psychological therapy, contributing a total of 70,000 hours to quake relief efforts.

According to the US-based company, voluntary social service is a tradition of Amway. In 2003, Amway China established its volunteer association, which has 162 volunteer teams around the nation. By the end of last year, over 48,000 employees had registered to be volunteers in China.

(China Daily 02/16/2009 page8)