Lin Zhixin’s Alternative Approach to Charitable Works

Children at the Hong Hua play the African drums that Lin Zhixin donated to the Home.

Unsung Beneficiaries

Lin became headmaster of the Taipei Municipal GE-ZHI Junior High School in 1969. During his visit to school children’s homes he was shocked to find that large numbers of them lived in penury. Although their lives were a daily struggle, the dilapidated houses they inhabited and scraps of barren land they owned nevertheless disqualified them from government welfare. Lin accordingly set about raising money and collecting donations from warmhearted relatives and friends to support these poor children. It has since become a lifelong undertaking.

Donating coffins to indigent families so that they might give their loved ones a decent burial was Lin’s earliest mission. Applicants apply through township governments, public service stations, community hospitals, and local administrative offices. More than NT$ 10 million is thus spent each year.

Contact with poverty-stricken families supporting relatives who are in a vegetative state, elderly folk living alone, and disabled people sorely in need of care spurred Lin on to further actions. In addition to financial support, Lin’s charity also contributes second-hand supplies to impoverished households and remote rural families. Financial aid for this group of people, along with the basic necessities they receive of rice, flour, cooking oil and clothing, amounts to more than NT$ 10 million annually.

Special support for children who have no legal guardians is Lin’s main focus. The Hong Hua Children’s Home, affiliated to Honghua Concentric Masonic, was specifically established for children whose single mothers have abandoned them or whose parents have divorced, committed suicide, or are serving jail terms. There is no government subsidy available for this group of vulnerable children. Lin’s Children’s Home is consequently a haven for them.

Caring for people who have no one to turn to and are on the verge of despair epitomizes Lin’s concept of charity. The road to benevolence has many pitfalls, but Lin’s commitment keeps him on it.

Distinctive Charitable Institution

Unlike conventional orphanages, Hong Hua fosters children whose families have forgotten them and whom society overlooks.

Located in a tranquil village in Taoyuan County, northwestern Taiwan, the Hong Hua Children’s Home stands amid beautiful scenery in a pleasant climate. The courtyard commands a grand view of the province’s central mountain range to its east, and to its west is the vast ocean of the Taiwan Strait. The north overlooks Zhuyuan Fishing Port and its vista of Guanyin Mountain 30 km away, and Datun and Qixing Mountains 50 km further on. South is the Yong-An Fishing Port and Xinwu Greenery Corridor tourist destinations.

Over the past 30 or more years, the children’s home has nurtured thousands of homeless children. In addition to attending to their daily life needs, it is also responsible for their schooling, training in social skills, behavioral rehabilitation and psychological consultations. It also arranges contacts with their families. This specifically designed scheme provides children with a home where they are brought up and can share their happiness and sorrows with a big family.

Daily care is not the sole domain of the facility. Life experience classes also feature. Eight years ago, Lin started a class during winter and summer vacations for urban children whose suffering had embittered and given them a jaded world view. Its participants have since surpassed 3,000.