They are ordinary people with extraordinary love in their hearts. In their own special ways, they have created a world of difference for those whom they have helped. These are their stories.

Chang Ping-yi was born in 1959 in Taiwan. That same year, on the mainland in Yuexi county in the Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture of Sichuan province, the local government created a village to control the spread of contagious leprosy.

Chang grew up to become a journalist and she first visited the lepers' village on assignment, covering the story for the Taiwan-based China Times. She was 40 that year.

What she found was an isolated place filled with healthy but helpless children without education and basic hygiene facilities.

"I'm a mother. When I saw the children in the lepers' village, I could not turn away," Chang said.

When she returned to Taiwan, she quit her job and started a foundation to help these children and to send out a clarion call to society in general that these people cannot be ignored and forgotten.

Her foundation now assists 20 leper colonies in the mainland. Chang has written books on the subject and donated all the income, building up potable water systems so the villages can have running water from taps.

She also focused on educating the children and a school was built after years of struggle. The first batch of 16 students graduated in 2005, and more than 300 students are currently in classes.

The school has even started recruiting students from outside the village, which has broken the barrier between the isolated village and the world outside.

"She not only crossed the Straits, but she also crossed the lines of prejudice. While embracing the lonely children from the lepers' village, she brought hope into their world." These were the words of citation when the annual Touching China awards named her in this year's honor roll.

The Touching China program, first mooted in 2002, selects 10 of China's most inspiring role models every year.

Another person from the heartlands who was honored this year is 41-year-old Alimjon Hahlik. For the last 10 years, this Uygur man originally from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has helped hundreds of students from low-income families stay in school.

Alim lost his job in 1997 and began to travel across the country looking for a place to settle and sell his lamb shashliks. He was driven away and chased out by competitors in several cities before he finally arrived in Bijie, Guizhou province in 2002 where a stranger lent him 100 yuan ($16) to start his business there.

In this city that showed him kindness, Alim began to pay it forward by helping poor students who could not afford their fees.

He would help anyone, and would not hesitate to donate money when he read about some child's hardship in the local media.

The sums were not large, but they were inspiring, especially when you realize that the lamb skewers Alim sells cost only 50 fen each. In 2006, Alim donated 5,000 yuan ($794) to a local college. The school decided to establish an Alim Scholarship to help impoverished students.

"Many people once helped me, so I can understand how desperate it is to be without help. I don't want them to suffer from that pain," he said.

In all, he has already given more than 200,000 yuan to students he barely know. His kindness and generosity won him media attention, and a wife. Last year, a 29-year old woman heard about him through the reports, and met and married him.

Alim's story is not unique in China. Another Touching China award winner comes from equally humble origins.

Liu Li, 32, is a worker from Fuyang, Anhui province. She has been working as a waitress in a foot reflexology club in Xiamen, Fujian province, for the last 12 years. Liu comes from a poor family with five children to support and she dropped out of school at the age of 14.

This disadvantage stayed with her for life and she now opens both her heart and her wallet to those who may have to stop schooling for the lack of money.

Liu divides her salary into three. She keeps a third for daily expenses, sends home a third to her parents and siblings and keeps the rest aside for the students she is helping.

She currently assists almost 100 students, half of whom she sponsors regularly. Her generosity and commitment earned her the sobriquet "most beautiful foot masseuse" on the Internet, but there were also some who speculated that Liu had a wealthy boyfriend who supports her charity.

Liu remains calm in the face of rumors and now, she has garnered enough support for a permanent foundation to be set up for the students she had been helping.

These are only a few of the stories. Many more remain untold, hidden in the grassroots and heartlands. But in this season of love and giving, their examples can ignite society, and that's the magic of charity from the heart.

You may contact the writer at wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn.

China Daily

(China Daily 02/12/2012 page4)