On July 24, the CRCF's Flood Disaster Relief Group in Sichuan split up in order to deliver family packages to the towns of Beichuan County and Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province. The plan was to dispense 300 and 200 care packages respectively in Beichuan and Wenchuan; afterwards they took site investigations of the fraternity homes (built with the financial aid from CRCF after 5.12 earthquake in 2008) and the situation there at that time. The purpose was to lay the foundation for facilitating the affected people's future reconstruction.

Yumi Volunteers are Distributing Family Packages

In order to ensure the transparency of the distribution process, the CRCF has openly recruited Yumi Love Fund volunteers to get involved in all aspects of the family packages distribution work. On the afternoon of July 23, the first 350 family packages for the flood victims in Sichuan, subsidized by the Yumi Love Fund of the CRCF, arrived in Dujiangyan. A dozen Yumi volunteers distributed the care packages to the disaster victims in Zhongxin.

On July 24 and 25, staff members of the CRCF and Yumi volunteers went to the most affected towns to dispense relief family packages in Shabei, Kaiping, and Xiaobei villages of Beichuan; and Maidi and Qipngou Village of Wenchuan County. More than 150 family packages have been dispensed by now. The victims in the disaster areas are very happy to receive those goods. They said these packages were the most valuable relief supplies received since the flood.

The flood damage in Sichuan Province is extensive and the affected houses and roads are in critical condition. In Xiaobei, one of the dispensing sites, there were more than 350 houses destroyed by the mud and rock slide. Qipangou village, another dispensing site, is even worse, having experienced more than 300 houses wiped out by flash floods, resulting in over 1,300 people left homeless. In all these regions the demand for disaster relief is substantial. The traffic situation in Beichuan and Wenchuan is still compromised as many of the roads are covered by silt brought by the flood. After such big rains, landslides occur frequently; this causes great difficulties for the family packages releasing work.

The Situation of Disaster Area

One of the Yumi volunteers who participated in the Sichuan flood rescue action said, "When I really participated in it, I started to understand how hard the Red Cross work is. What the CRCF does is far more detailed than what we have expected. Now I believe that every coin we donated is used in these family packages. Even if we have any doubts before, now they're all gone. So thank you for that."

Niu Xiaobo, a member of the CRCF's PR and Communication Department, speaks full praises for these Yumi volunteers, "They are really nice and especially supportive of our work; they give us significant help."

When it was heard that the CRCF started a flood relief action in Sichuan, the Yumi Love Fund actively responded by donating 400,000 Yuan for purchasing 1,000 family packages for the areas that had suffered serious floods, including Dujiangyan, Beichuan, and Wenchuan. This is the second time the Yumi Love Fund financed the relief family packages this year. The first time was to provide family packages during the relief action of the April 20 Ya`an earthquake.