A nine-year-old boy from the northeastern city of Harbin, Heilongjiang Province purchased hundreds of books recently and donated them to a charity helping AIDS orphans.

For the past year, Sun Huixi has been selling used plastic bottles in his out of school time, saving thousands of yuan which he used to buy 800 books of fairy tales. He donated all of these books to the Red Ribbon Family, China's first home for AIDS orphans that is due open soon.

Sun collects plastic bottles on a street after school.

The books include the Grimm's Fairy Tales and the Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales. The little boy hopes these books will be sufficient for the Red Ribbon Family to set up a library where AIDS orphans can enjoy reading fairy tales just like other children.

Many adults wonder how much a nine-year-old can know about AIDS, but the boy's mother explained that since Sun Huixi was very little he has given money to every beggar he saw, and he is a very warmhearted child. Last year Sun saw some photos of desperate AIDS orphans in the newspaper, and got very upset. That was why he began to save.

Sun collects plastic bottles on a street after school.

 
Sun has been invited to attend the opening ceremony of the Red Ribbon Family orphanage, which opened its doors on September 27, in Shangcai county, Henan Province.

(CRI September 29, 2005)