COVER STORY

EAST MEETS WEST From Rural China to Rural Colorado

2017 rural teacher training hosted at Beijing International Studies University. Instruments donated to Byers Elementary School in 2020 through Friends of Nathan Yip and the Future Arts Foundation.

Nathan Yip Foundation is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2022.

The organization will kick off the special year with its annual Lunar New Year celebration held on Saturday, February 12, 2022 at the Grand Hyatt. This will be the first large, in-person gathering in two years with extra COVID precautions put in place like requiring masks plus proof of COVID vaccination or negative PCR test. 2022 will be the Year of the Tiger, and the event, themed “Into the Wild,” will feature traditional Chinese decor and elements of jungle greenery. It will be chaired by Julia and Rusty Porterfield.

The Nathan Yip Foundation was founded in 2002 by Colorado residents, Linda & Jimmy Yip, after they lost their only son, Nathan, in a car accident in 2001. Nathan was 19-yearsold and was home for winter break from his freshman year at Lehigh University. He was a graduate of Kent Denver, a Denver-area private school.

Growing up, Nathan was very involved with philanthropy and was Vice President of Future Givers, a student-run philanthropy group at Kent. He also loved to travel the world with his parents. While visiting remote areas of China, Nathan was overwhelmed by the poverty and lack of educational opportunities. During these trips, Nathan and his father, Jimmy, spoke of starting a foundation to fund education for impoverished and underserved children worldwide.

Nathan recognized his own privilege and knew that by focusing on education, he could begin to end the cycle of poverty that exists in so many rural areas. The Yip family made a promise that when Nathan finished college, they would work together to establish this foundation. Since Nathan’s life was cut short, Jimmy and Linda took it upon themselves to make his dream his legacy by creating a private foundation in his name. When the foundation first began, the Yips raised funds through dinners and events, like their flagship Chinese-themed Lunar New Year Celebration. They were heavily involved in Denver’s commercial real estate investment scene and built up a large network of non-Asian friends who they loved to share their culture and traditions with. The first Chinese New Year dinner was hosted in 2003 at the

Palace Chinese Restaurant. Once the event outgrew that space, it moved to the Cable Center for many years before it was held in larger and larger event venues and hotel ballrooms.

As the events grew and public support widened, the Yips and their founding Board made the decision to convert the Foundation to a public charity.

Though the majority of projects over the years have been building schools and supporting students and teachers in rural China, the Foundation’s first project was building a dormitory in Loretto, Baja, Mexico. The Foundation also supported many projects worldwide over the years in Mexico, throughout Africa, and beyond. It also supported a couple local student support programs in the Denver area.

In 2016, the Foundation heard overwhelmingly from donors that they wanted to support more local, Colorado programs. The executive team met with donors and funders, and identified a connection between the work being done in rural and remote areas of China and an opportunity to provide support specifically to Colorado’s rural school communities.

At the time, no other Denver-based organizations were doing education work in rural areas, and rural schools remained very “out of sight and out of mind.” The Foundation formed its Rural Colorado Education Committee, set up a series of site visits, and conducted a listening tour across Colorado to learn about the challenges, strengths, and opportunities rural schools were facing. It identified a handful of school projects to fund in its first year as it developed what is now a robust grant application process.

Despite two years of COVID disruptions, the foundation has still been able to fund projects all over the state, thanks to immense donor generosity through a difficult eventbased fundraising landscape.

In the past year alone, it has distributed $73,000 for vocational programs, reading curriculum and software, educator professional de-

FUN FACT ABOUT NATHAN

Nathan’s Chinese name was 浩霖 (hao lin), meaning “heavy rain” in English. Whenever the Yips attended school openings in China, it would rain, even if rain wasn’t in the forecast. They believed that to be a good omen of Nathan’s approval of their good work.

When the foundation shifted its funding focus to rural Colorado, the team conducted its first listening tour site visit in October 2016 to Cortez, Colorado, located in Colorado’s far southwest desert corner. It also rained that day.

When we started in Colorado, no organizations were investing in rural schools the way we wanted to. It was an exciting time.

- Tarika Cefkin Executive Director, Nathan Yip Foundation

Classroom at Shining Hope for Communities’ Kibera School for Girls in Nairobi, Kenya constructed through a grant from the Nathan Yip Foundation.

Learn more about the Nathan Yip Foundation at:

nathanyipfoundation.org.

Students from a science club at Ortega Middle School in Alamosa, Colo. visit Channel 7 on a 2019 trip to Denver sponsored by the Nathan Yip Foundation.

velopment, and the launch of a new youth outdoor education summer program with the Ute Mountain Ute tribe. The 2022 Chinese New Year Celebration’s special crowd-sourced paddle raiser component will support the construction of a playground for the Ute Mountain Ute tribe’s new elementary school that is now housed on the reservation and will eventually serve up to 90 students K-5.

Set about by anti-Asian sentiment and some very real happenings in the Colorado community in 2020, the foundation has deepened connections within the Asian American Pacific Islander community and is partnering with other community groups and leaders to develop a new anti-bullying program specifically for 3rd to 5th grade students that will approach the subject from the lens of anti-hate, anti-racism, and allyship. The goal is to launch locally to set a framework for the program that could eventually grow to be hosted in rural communities all over the state who may see diversity presented in a different way.

To date, the Nathan Yip Foundation has funded 80 unique educational projects (many for multiple years) serving approximately 65,500 students worldwide.

Nathan Yip Foundation has funded 80 unique educational projects serving approximately 65,500 students worldwide.

Over 40 Ute Mountain Ute families received computers through a partnership with Tech For All in 2017.

“We’ve been lucky to have so much support in the past 20 years and are really looking forward to the next 20 years and securing our legacy.

- Jimmy Yip, Founder, Nathan Yip Foundation

Linda and Jimmy Yip with students at Denver’s East High School for the launch of Nate’s Pass, an RTD bus pass grant program for low-income students. Jimmy Yip at the Marian Children’s Home, an orphanage in Fuzhou, China that the Nathan Yip Foundation supported through educational scholarships.

Guests participate in the “Good Luck Salad Toss” at the foundation’s 2020 annual gala celebrating Lunar New Year. The Child Sponsorship Program provided scholarships for $150 per year to students at six NYF schools in China.