-- Remembering Li Yifei, a retired veteran cadre from the Kunming No. 3 Retired Cadres Recuperation Center of the Yunnan Provincial Military Region (I)
In Kunming in the middle of summer, in a quiet ward of the 920th Hospital of the Joint Logistics Support Force, Li Yifei, a 96-year-old retired veteran cadre, was lying on the bed, as if he was in a state of deep sleep.
"Grandpa Li, we've come to see you." Zhao Kexi, a staff member of the Yunnan Youth Development Foundation, held the old man's hand tightly and whispered in his ear. After a while, Li Yifei closed his eyes and said the word "good" lightly.
"Grandpa Li has been so tired all these years, busy sponsoring the children's schooling, busy writing letters to the children, busy visiting many rural schools, he needs a break so much." The medical staff on the side explained.
Li Yifei is recording the information of the aided students.
"Grandpa Li, I also brought a video specially sent to you by a student sponsored by you today." Zhao Kexi put the mobile phone in front of the old man. In the video, a girl said in a sweet voice: "Grandpa Li, I am Xiao Cao who is sponsored by you, thank you very much for your help and support all the time." Since having heart surgery, I am recovering well. After graduating from university, I am now admitted to work in a public institution. I will continue to work hard, do everything well, and give back to the society like you. We sincerely wish you a long and healthy life and success in all your lives. ”
Suddenly, Li Yifei became energetic, opened his eyes and quietly looked at Xiao Cao in the video, his face was full of relief.
"Grandpa Li is like this, as long as he mentions the matter of sponsoring students, as long as he hears the stories of children's growth, he will be refreshed." "In the past few decades, all he has been thinking about is sponsoring students, and what he hopes most is that students can become useful people for the country and society." "For 32 years, Grandpa Li has been frugal and has donated more than 1.14 million yuan to 420 poor students in Yunnan." The staff and medical staff of the Yunnan Youth Foundation, who are familiar with the situation of the elderly, said in a rambling voice.
Li Yifei when he was young
Li Yifei, who joined the army and came to Yunnan in 1949, was originally from Wujin, Jiangsu, and after 34 years of border defense work in Yunnan, he retired with a second-degree disability that had been injured three times in the line of duty. After more than 40 years of retirement, he is still busy giving full play to his spare energy, donating money to schools, helping the poor, carrying out revolutionary tradition and patriotism education for young people, and pouring and dedicating the loyalty and belief of a revolutionary worker and the selfless love of a Communist Party member to this red fertile soil.
In 1983, Li Yifei retired from the post of deputy director of the barracks department of the Kunming Military Region, and raised flowers and read newspapers every day. At first, he enjoyed this leisurely life, but after a few months he was not satisfied and felt that he could do something for the country and society. At that time, there was a national defense education activity on campus, so he became a member of the lecturer group and went to the school from time to time to preach revolutionary traditions and national defense knowledge.
In May 1992, Li Yifei was deeply touched when he saw a news report in the People's Daily about students in the Daba Mountain area who would rather skip lunch than save money to go to school. He contacted the reporter who wrote the story and sent 200 yuan to the students. At that time, his monthly salary was only more than 150 yuan.
"In the past, I have traveled to many poor areas in Yunnan and know that it is not easy for children in mountainous areas to study." Li Yifei discussed with his wife and decided to participate in the "Hope Project - Million Love Action", and took out a part of the money from his retirement salary every month to help poor students realize their dreams of studying.
So, Li Yifei contacted the China Youth Foundation and said that he wanted to sponsor children in Yunnan to go to school. The China Youth Foundation (CYDF) conveyed his wishes to the Yunnan CYDF (then known as the Yunnan Hope Project Office).
One day in 1992, the staff of the Yunnan Hope Project Office received Li Yifei, a special donor.
There are two main reasons for saying that it is special: Li Yifei was in his 60s at the time, and he was dressed very plainly.
In general, most donors are between the ages of 30 and 55, with those over the age of 60 rare. At that time, Li Yifei was wearing an old overalls and riding an old bicycle, and the staff thought he had come to ask for funding at first.
But no one expected that it was this old man who would later become the longest-lasting individual donor in the history of the development of the Yunnan Hope Project.
An old photo of Li Yifei learning about the situation on the spot.
Soon, Ma Yang, a Hani orphan from Niangpu Primary School in Langdi Township, Honghe County, recommended by the Yunnan Youth Foundation, became Li Yifei's first child to sponsor school.
Since then, sponsoring poor students and participating in public welfare undertakings have become an important part of Li Yifei's retirement life.
Li Yifei presented stationery to the students
In addition to making regular donations, Li Yifei learned that some students could not afford pencils and did not have homework books, so he prepared a "love school bag" for each student, which contained homework books, pencil cases, Xinhua dictionaries, math problem solving manuals, etc.
In 2001, Li Yifei sponsored Han Suqin, a Dai girl from Menglian County, Pu'er City, who was in the second grade of primary school. Soon after, Han Suqin wrote that she had not received the money, and Li Yifei immediately contacted the Menglian County Hope Project Office, and found that there were three or four people with the same name as her in that place, and the tuition was sent elsewhere, so he immediately sent the tuition fee again. He sponsored Han Suqin until she was admitted to Yunnan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. After graduation, Han Suqin entered the Second People's Hospital of Pu'er City. "Grandpa Li is like my own grandfather, and I feel the warmth of a relative from him." Han Suqin said in an interview with reporters.
Even when he was sick, Li Yifei was still concerned about the funding object. When he was in good spirits, he urged the staff of the Yunnan Youth Foundation: "We must arrange time to visit as soon as possible, find out the groups in need, and distribute the relief funds in place." ”
In April this year, Li Yifei, whose health was deteriorating, communicated through writing.
The day before this year's "May Day", Li Yifei, accompanied by Zhao Kexi, came to the bank in a wheelchair and remitted 220,000 yuan to the Hope Project, which was used to subsidize 40 needy college students and 10 graduate students of Yunnan University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. He let out a long sigh of relief: "It's another wish for this year." ”
Li Yifei took a group photo with the sponsored students.
Flipping through Li Yifei's handmade "List of Hope Project Pairing to Help Students", the funding situation in the past 32 years is clear at a glance: donated 47,400 yuan from 1992 to 2004, donated 12,000 yuan in 2005, donated 75,000 yuan in 2019, donated 220,000 yuan in 2022, and donated 220,000 yuan in 2024.
At the 2008 Yunnan Hope Project "Love Dream University" public welfare activity distribution ceremony, Li Yifei delivered a speech as a representative of the donor.
Over the past 40 years, Li Yifei has donated a total of 1.142 million yuan to support 420 poor students of 26 ethnic groups in Yunnan Province. He traveled to 145 rural schools in 80 townships and towns in 30 counties (cities and districts) in Yunnan, traveled more than 15,000 kilometers, went deep into the Yunnan Hope Project site 11 times, visited 183 aided students, visited 28 extremely poor families, supervised and inspected the quality of 88 Hope Primary School construction projects, and truly regarded the matter of subsidizing poor students to go to school as the most important thing in his life.
Li Yifei's donation certificate
Li Yifei came from the old society where he did not have enough food and clothing, and material scarcity and starvation were the memories engraved in his heart, and he developed the habit of thrift and thrift since he was a child. Especially after becoming associated with Project Hope, in order to help poor students as much as possible, he was frugal on his living expenses to an incomprehensible extent.
One day, when Li Yifei's family was helping him wash his clothes, they found several holes in a pair of pants that he had worn for many years, so he decided to throw them away. When he went to the bathroom, he saw that the pants had not been washed, so he asked why. The family said, "I can't wear these pants anymore, so I threw them away and bought a new one." Li Yifei immediately objected: "Don't throw it away, you can still wear it if you make up for it." The family said, "What age is it, and who still wears clothes with patches?" ”
Seeing that his family had to throw away the old pants, Li Yifei said earnestly: "We can't throw away the virtues of hard work, simplicity, diligence and thrift just because the conditions are good now." "The family couldn't help it, so they had to wash and mend their pants.
Li Yifei's life photos
Many of Li Yifei's clothes are "three years of new, three years of old, and another three years of sewing and mending", and the money saved is used to donate to education.
Once, the Yunnan Youth Foundation organized several recipients to meet with Li Yifei. Along the way, everyone thought to themselves, the old man donated so much money in a year, he must live in a mansion and wear a famous brand, right? But when they came to the old man's house, they were surprised to see that the home was full of old furniture that had been used for many years, and Li Yifei was wearing old clothes that his wife had issued when she was in the factory.
When leaving, the staff reminded Li Yifei to change into better clothes to take pictures, but he didn't find a decent dress after looking for a long time. Several of the beneficiaries couldn't help it, and they burst into tears and couldn't cry. They didn't expect that the people who generously sponsored their education would be so "poor".
Li Yifei also taught himself home appliance maintenance, plumbing maintenance and other technologies, and others were very puzzled. He explained: "Things are easy to break after a long time, and if you find someone to repair them, it will cost you tens or hundreds of yuan at a time, and if you don't repair them, you have to buy new ones, and it will cost you a lot of money to repair them or not." I learned the maintenance technique, and when things broke down in the future, I repaired them myself, and the money I saved could be used to fund a few more poor students. ”
Usually, Li Yifei always enlightens his family like this: "Good steel has to be used on the blade, and money must be used where it is most needed." I'm old, and it doesn't matter if I buy a few more things or a few fewer things, but children are different, and a single donation can change their destiny, and in turn, the fate of their entire family. I'm going to give them as much money as I can. ”
Li Yifei's good deeds have sown the seeds of love in the hearts of more people, and they have taken over the torch of love, and have become kind-hearted people who donate to education and enthusiastic people who devote themselves to public welfare, and link more students and needy groups with continuous love.
One afternoon in mid-April this year, Zhao Kexi came to Li Yifei's hospital room and made a special trip to send him a letter of thanks from a group of aided students. Li Yifei opened the document bag, and there were 9 letters inside. He picked up a letter and looked at it word for word.
Li Yifei reading a student's letter.
Li Yifei has 3 large cardboard boxes at home, with a total of more than 1,000 letters. These are written by the sponsored students and even the parents of the students, some of them are the most recent and some are very old, and some of them have been yellowed because of the long time. He carefully numbered and kept each letter, and marked the envelope with the basic information of the poor students.
A letter from a student retained by Li Yifei
A girl from the water tribe in Fuyuan County once wrote a letter to Li Yifei: "Grandpa Li, you can sponsor me to study, I am very grateful to you." I hope you will write to me often in the future, and I will definitely report the results of each exam to you......" Starting from replying to this girl, Li Yifei took the initiative to write letters to the children he sponsored.
In the process of writing the letter, there were quite a few episodes. Once, a student wrote in a letter, "Grandpa Li, there are many words in your letter that I can't read. Li Yifei developed the habit of taking quick notes when he attended a meeting in the army, so his handwriting was a little sloppy. From then on, every time he wrote a letter, he wrote neatly and neatly. Sometimes, when he was worried that the children would not have the money to reply to the letter, he attached a reply stamp and envelope to the letter.
As the children's replies flew into his hands like snowflakes, Li Yifei wrote more and more letters to various places.
Once, a Lisu child was asked to drop out of school because of his unsatisfactory academic performance. Li Yifei wrote many letters to persuade the child's parents, but the child's parents finally dispelled this idea. Xiaocao in Lianghe County suffers from congenital heart disease, and her parents wrote to Li Yifei to help contact the hospital for treatment. With his matchmaking, Xiao Cao, accompanied by his family, went to a hospital to successfully complete heart surgery.
The list goes on. Li Yifei used letters one after another to protect the children's dreams of studying, greet them with warmth, and solve problems for them.
The students sponsored by Li Yifei are growing up, have jobs, and have their own families, and the initial letter of help has become a letter of thanks and a letter of report for results. No matter how the form and content of the letters change, what remains unchanged is Li Yifei's deep affection for them. He kept the letters as if they were works of art, and read them over and over again when he had nothing to do. Seeing that the children who almost dropped out of school at the beginning were successful one by one, his heart was as sweet as honey.
Give people roses, and leave a lingering fragrance in your hands. Li Yifei's advanced deeds have been widely praised in the land of Yunling, and he is also known as the "grandfather of public welfare" by the majority of students, and has won many commendations such as "National Advanced Individual of Veteran Cadres", "National Advanced Worker Caring for the Next Generation", "Advanced Retired Cadre of the Whole Army", "The Most Beautiful Volunteer in the Country", and was listed on the "China Good Person List" in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Source: Yunnan Daily