On the morning of May 29th, the first “ZALL Cup” Campus Running Race was held at Wuhan University (WHU). Over 3,000 students, faculty members and alumni took part in the event. They ran across the whole campus to raise fund for a charity program—“Wei Ai Luojia” (“Tiny Love for WHU”).
"Wei Ai Luojia” is a program initiated by Wuhan University Alumni Association, Wuhan University Education and Development Foundation and Wuhan University Young Volunteers Association. The program encourages the public to make small amounts of donations and help students in need with the accreted donations. Since June 25th, 2015, it has received 334,482.5 RMB and helped more than 1,000 students.
At the opening ceremony, President Li Xiaohong of WHU gave an enthusiastic speech. “‘Wei Ai Luojia’ means to gather the tiny love of every WHUer. Therefore, every participant today is already the champion of our game,” said Li.
Ying Weiwei，Vice President of WHU, introduced to the public the annual promotion ambassadors of “Wei Ai Luojia” , namely the alumnus Yu Zhonglian, Professor Pan Yingchun and the “Qingquan Project” team. The alumnus Yu supported over 1,000 students in the past 23 years, helping them to accomplish their studies in colleges despite financial difficulties. Professor Pan from the School of History volunteered in blood donation for more than a decade and saved over 200 lives. The “Qingquan Project”, an NGO founded by WHU students, has been dedicated to ensure drinking water safety for the rural residents during the past three years.
The openning ceremony
After the opening ceremony, the race soon began. As the starting gun fired, seven groups of runners set off on their tracks. Their orange sport suits brightened the summer day.
One participant, Wei Hong, a graduate from the School of Journalism and Communication, arrived at the event by a midnight flight with her husband. “From Beijing to Wuhan, we travelled only out of sheer love of WHU,” said Wei.
The participants
Soon the winner of the student group came out. Roger, a boy from Uganda majoring in computer science, finished the race in only 20 minutes and 53 seconds and won the championship. The champion of the alumni group went to Hu Zhuyin, who covered 14.7 km within an hour. As for the team race, both Shenzhen Luojia Running Association and Hubei Bohao Grants Foundation got the first place with a total distance of 64.3 km.
The winning boy
The theme of the race is “Health, Love and Commonweal”. Every participant shall donate 10 RMB per kilometer of the distance they run. Up to 14:30 pm that day, “Wei Ai Luojia” has received donations added up to 17,548.2RMB from more than 600 participating alumni. For the 978 students who had finished the whole route, WHU Alumni Entrepreneur Association volunteered to donate 5.20RMB under each of their names. What’s more, the online platform of “Wei Ai Luojia” has received 19,991.3RMB from 223 people that day.
To encourage the public spirit of running for love on campus, a special bidding was held after the race. Alumni and their enterprises bid for the opportunity to make donations under the winners’ names. The highest bids for the female and male champion have reached 50,000RMB and 60,000RMB respectively. While the silver and bronze medal winners attracted 32,000 RMB and 13,000 RMB. The total amount of donations has reached 157,000RMB.
The bidding part
"This event joins the goal of charity and the fun of sports,” said Ying Weiwei, “It blazes a brand new trail for us.”
(Rewritten byTang Yedan, edited by Zhang Ran & Hu Sijia)
