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Li Ping fundraiser

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Six months ago Salvador's Coffee House announced one of their employees, Li Ping, was suffering from renal failure. Her prognosis is daunting — a lifetime of treatment and hospital visits.

In addition to taking up a tremendous amount of Li Ping's emotional and physical energy, the healthcare she requires simply to stay alive is also extremely expensive. Li Ping, who is just 18 years-old, will need to get dialysis twice a week for the rest of her life. Each hospital visit requires an entire day's time. This includes a trip to and from her family's farm — which takes several hours both ways — as well as the time spent receiving treatment.

Over the past half year, through the generosity of Kunming residents and businesses, as well as dozens of international donors, 165,000 yuan (US$26,700) has been raised for Li Ping. In terms of treatment, this assures her medical care costs, which include perpetual reservations of a Lincang hospital bed, are guaranteed to be paid for the next four years.

Fundraising events

Kunming's art community has come together to organize another fundraiser. The goal this time is to raise 200,000 yuan (US$32,500) to assure Li Ping's medical bills will be covered for the next decade. Although this most recent fundraiser is not expecting to raise all of the money in one go, organizers are hoping to kick-start the process. Those who would like to donate but are unable to attend can make contributions online.

Live music will begin around 3pm on May 12 at Slice of Heaven. Performances are scheduled in the following order: French Mafia, a horn and strings salute to the Beatles, Russian gypsy music by Solid Plan, Kunming Jazz Trio, YanKaDi African Drummers accompanied by fire dancers, Lao Han, and finally John Nevada Lundemo and friends. Entry to Slice of Heaven is free and the restaurant will donate 20 percent of all sales to Li Ping.

In addition to Slice of Heaven's generous contribution, money will be raised through a raffle. Individual tickets for the lottery cost 20 yuan and there is no purchase limit. Each ticket allows the holder a chance to win one of dozens of prizes. These include food and drink vouchers for several local restaurants, free Chinese lessons and two grand prizes – a pair of gold earrings and a porcelain tea set, both of which are valued at 2,000 yuan. In total more than 10,000 yuan in prizes have been donated. The raffle will begin around 8:30pm.

The festivities will also include an ongoing project by art collective Foca Loca. Members will begin making a piece of art at the beginning of the day. Once it is completed, it will be auctioned off to the highest bidder with the proceeds donated to Li Ping. Augmenting Slice of Heaven's usual menu, hand-made sausages will be for sale fresh off the grill. Five yuan from the sale of each sausage will be put toward the cause.

When the music and raffle end around 9pm the party will move to Moondog. A live hip-hop show by Sam and Mike will begin at 10pm and Moondog will donate 10 percent of its nightly sales. Once again, entry is free.

Two previous fundraisers managed to collect 21,000 yuan (US$3,400). Let's see if we can surpass that total this weekend.

Salvador's and Li Ping would like to thank everyone who has already made a donation or contributed their time and efforts toward the fundraiser. Special thanks to Sean Weatherall for organizing everything so professionally.

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Comments

Glad to hear of the success of last year' effort. I am really proud to be a part of Kunming's Expat community.

But the job is not done. Next Sunday we have a chance to dig a little deeper and help this kid. Let's Do It!

Yes great work by everyone so far and its a good idea to kick start the appeal! however i have been researching a little and so a valid question!
Why don't we buy her a hemodialysis machine for the home??

This is now common practice for people who need dialysis.

The funds made already cover this 10 fold!! Prices start from under $4000!

The remaining fund money can then be used for electricity and water bills(i read the machine uses water) and maybe a carer to help administer or train her family to use it. Also for any maintenance. This would save her the long journey from her families farm. She would be thrilled if we did this? Thoughts and opinions please?

David

check out some of these sites i found

www.kidneypatientguide.org.uk/home_HD.php
www.kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/homehemodialysis/

just to add to this. It wouldn't surprise me if they make the machines in China, so the cost would be even less. David

There are two types of dialysis machines. My mother had a peritoneal machine in her home. It used the same kind of water used in IV drips, but in much larger bags. A nurse came to her home each evening to connect it and each morning to disconnect. There was some surgery required to insert the connections in her abdomen.

When that was no longer working they chose to go with hemodialysis, but they would not do that at home - only hospital. I don't know if that has changed in the past 10 years.

I dont think bbq sausages are good idea, specially for medical problem

Gompo, what sort of a negative comment is that? Take your blinkers off read the facts and educated yourself. Don't just dismiss something you know nothing about.

This is common practice now! This gives patients freedom by saving on journeys to hospitals and on the costs of treatment.

according to the United States Renal Data System's 2010 figures, which came out this morning. Of those, only about 35,000 do dialysis at home, and just 5,500 of them do home hemodialyisis-ABCNews
abcnews.go.com/[...]

more info
www.wbaltv.com/[...]

of course we have to be sure it will work for Li Ping so we need to look into it and do some research. But this is too big to just dismiss. Lets hope this will work for her.

Alpage48 thanks for the comment and yes with what i have been reading i believe treatment along with advanced technology has improved, which is why so many people can now have treatment at home.

Dave

sorry to re-post this link but the video on here is very useful and shows how the patients operate the dialysis machine.
www.wbaltv.com/[...]

Thanks for the info David. We have contacted Li Ping's doctor and will soon know whether or not something like this is even feasible. Most of the machines would be very difficult to use in her village and it would be tough to get her the proper training, but it seems that there are some simpler ones out there like this one...
www.nxstage.com/homehemodialysis/products/the-system-one-cycler

raffle with prizes worth up to 2000? does anyone really need to be collecting prizes when there are people in desperate need?

Colin that looks like a great little machine. Perfect!
I hope the chinese doctor is fully aware that in the US alone 35,000 people are having home dialysis. If he says no then I would also like a second opinion from a western 'qualified' doctor ;-) but lets see what he says.

If he gives the green light then I think there are only hurdles and not barriers to all this. For example, depending on the type of machine, we may also need a generator, in case of any power cuts. A water purifier and pump for her home or maybe even barrels of water if they do not have a supply in her home. Even if it is not possible to have it located in her home, then a local clinic or any suitable facility could provide the room? The machine can be transported there easily.

As I said If the doctor gives it the thumbs up, then I think there are only small hurdles to get over not barriers.
Fingers crossed!

Dave

That was an awesome day. Thanks to all of you who made it out. A special thanks to all the bands and artists who volunteered their time. Unfortunately we all got kicked out by security before the final act, but it didn't ruin a beautiful evening. Nevada, sometimes we don't even need to hear your music to know you are the biggest rock star around. Thanks to Sean for organizing a very successful and eventful day. Really looking forward to your next events. Thanks to all the businesses who donated their gifts for the raffle. Thanks to Barbara and her lovely staff (and those who helped her out today) at Slice of Heaven for their continuing hard work to make Kunming a better place. Thanks to Kris, Cass, Eddy and Shelter Bar and everyone else who played their part and who helped clean up afterward. And thanks to Moondog for taking on the late night crew to continue the day's fundraiser. Over 10,000 was raised for Li Ping's medical treatments today. It was one of those really good days to be in Kunming.

Also, big thanks to you Colin, as well as everyone else involved and who attended to make an event that wont be forgotten anytime soon. I would also like to send thanks to Foca Loca art studio for their time, and although the event being stopped by 'the man' cut our auction short, all paintings will be available for purchase at slice of heaven, with all proceeds going to Liping.

Furthermore, I hope that yesterdays festival is just the tip of the iceberg with these sort of art/music/charity events. If anyone has any ideas or any interest in volunteering to help plan these events in the future, send me an email at seanweatherall@yahoo.com and we can start planning to the next big event. Thanks Kunming for being awesome.

David, i know quite a lot about the pig industry. And it is often very unethical.

I also studied tcm and these kinds of food are often bad for health.

Comment has been removed at the Moderator's discretion. Please refrain from name-calling and stay on topic.

why not remove Gompo's useless and off topic comments? they're hardly 'on topic'!

...and more on topic, well done to everyone who organised this and/or took part. let's have more of this type of thing. more BBQ sausages too please!

Dear Friends and Supporters of Li Ping,

It is with a very heavy heart that we bear the news of Li Ping's passing. She died yesterday in her home at the age of 18. We do not know if she died of complications from her kidney disease, her enlarged heart, or something else unrelated. We will likely never know as she will remain in her village, far from any medical examiner.

For all of us this is very sudden and very tragic news. At Salvador's there are 12 employees from Li Ping's small village and they all grew up together. This loss is very close to home. Since starting her dialysis treatments last October, she seemed to be in relatively good spirits. We spoke with her two weeks ago about possibly bringing her back to Kunming to meet with doctors and reexamine her options.

Nine months ago we nearly lost Li Ping to renal failure. The support of many in Kunming and around the world made it possible for her to seek treatment and have a chance for a healthy future. She had far more friends than she will ever know. Many of you worked very hard to make the fundraising effort possible, and even more of you donated generously.

More than 185,000 yuan ($30,000) has been raised since October. About 1/5 of that has already been spent on Li Ping's treatments. The remaining donations will go into a fund in Li Ping's name. There are millions in China's countryside, and many in Yunnan, that cannot afford needed medical care. Li Ping's fund will pursue initiatives to combat this problem. For those who donated, if you would rather have your donation go to another cause, please contact me.

The Salvador's team thanks you all for your continuing support and amazing generosity.

Thank you Colin for the time you took to write this, as well as everything else you have invested and done for Li Ping. Our heartfelt condolences to Li Ping's family and friends. I am sure that the fund in Li Ping's name will help save lives, and we are grateful for that. All the best.

Sad news.
I echo everything @Adrian said.

I am so sorry about Li Ping's news. As a youth, her life is too short and negligible. She passed away during the age of enjoying the beginning of youthful vigor. I believe that I and all the people who cared and helped her would be sad about this news. Hopefully that she was not so pain when she was leaving, and her last memory was peaceful without too much pity.

Just read your article on Christian Monitor and now the news about Li Ping. How sad, she was way too young.

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