More than 300 children orphaned in the Lijiang earthquake of 1996 have donated a year's pocket money to victims of the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan.

The total of 15,174 yuan ($2,200) is a significant sacrifice for the orphans from Yunnan Province, who pledged their meager incomes from planting and selling vegetables and collecting waste for recycling.

"We hope the orphaned children in the earthquake can have a warm Children's Day on June 1," 16-year-old schoolgirl Xiao Yun, who together with her schoolmates was orphaned by the 7.0-strength quake that devastated Lijiang in 1996, said.

"We also suffered the same bitter experience more than a decade ago."

Founded in 1999, the school relies on public donations and runs on a shoestring budget.

But that hasn't stopped it from offering to house and school children who lost their parents in the May 12 earthquake.

"Our school would like to take care of about 200 orphans from the earthquake," Ling Feng, director of the Chinese Orphan Relief Fund, the school's chief sponsor, said.

The fund, which is supervised by the All-China Women's Federation has reached an agreement with the Sichuan government to send a number of earthquake orphans to the school in the near future.

"Our school is like a big family and our children are strong, optimistic and ready to give," Ling, a neurosurgeon at Beijing's Xuanwu Hospital, told China Daily yesterday.

Ling said she was so proud of the children when she learned they wished to donate all they had to help Sichuan earthquake victims.

"Thanks to the love and care given by the more than 40 professional teachers and dozens of foster parents, the once numb and lonely orphans have grown into young people with strong characters and a willingness to help others," Ling said.

(China Daily May 22, 2008)