On Tuesday, October 4, six students and one teacher from the Lijiang Ethnic Orphan School in Lijiang, China arrived at Garrison Forest School in Owings Mills, MD greeted by the sound of the entire Lower School singing the traditional American round, Make New Friends. Over the next five days at GFS, the Lijiang visitors experienced American culture led by GFS students and teachers, and GFS students learned about the language and culture of their friends from abroad. The majority of the 300 children at the Lijiang School have lost family members due to China's recent earthquakes. During their time at GFS, the Lijiang students attended classes at the school, visited landmarks in Baltimore and Washington DC, and spent time getting to know GFS students and their host families.
On Thursday night, Garrison Forest’s Confucius Classroom, the first such program among Maryland’s independent schools, sponsored a benefit concert to raise money for the Lijiang Ethnic School and the Half the Sky Foundation, an organization helping orphaned children in China. The concert helped raise more than $2,000 for children in need from China.
Attendees from across the GFS community and Baltimore region were treated to spectacular performances of classical music from world-class musicians from the Peabody Institute: Sidney Yin, pianist; The Beijing Guitar Duo: Meng Su and Yameng Wang; Jiayin Shen, pianist; and Hui-Chuan Chen, pianist.
Find out what's happening in Owings Mills-Reisterstownfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Garrison Forest's relationship with the Lijiang Ethnic Orphan School began in summer 2010, when a group of GFS students, young alumnae, and faculty volunteered at the Lijiang School. The trip was generously underwritten by Zhenping Wang and En Zhang, the parents of GFS international boarder Sareen Zhang '12, and supported by the GFS James Center's Global Service and Learning program. fall 2010, GFS students founded a Service League club, Building Bridges, to provide yearlong outreach, and in summer 2011, another GFS contingent returned to serve as volunteers.
