Because of his experience, Borden is in the process of organizing the Yale China Care Club, which he said will focus on getting Yale students to volunteer in China just as he did. The students could eventually work with local families who have adopted Chinese children by possibly organizing playgroups and helping the kids learn about Chinese culture and language. The blueprints for the club are similar ones at Harvard, Brown University and three private schools in Greenwich.

Borden said to get the club up and running, it has to be registered through the college and Dwight Hall, which is a nonprofit, student-run organization geared toward public service. Borden is on the executive committee at Dwight Hall. Fellow Yale student Mattias Sparrow of Greenwich, a friend of Dalio's, is helping Borden.

He said he hopes the club can be set up by the time students go on winter break.

“We need to establish a board and raise money,” Borden said, but added that fund-raising “probably is not a huge problem.”

“Yale has a lot of Chinese resources,” Borden said. “It will be easy to start building things.” Greater New Haven is also home to a Families with Children from China group, and Borden hopes to establish a relationship with those families.
“I want to send Yale kids to Chinese orphanages,” he added. “Nothing could possibly make anyone more passionate about this than living it for yourself. I had no idea (what it would be like. I've traveled before, but it was such a jarring experience to see how people have to live, the kids who don't have families.”

To keep its population from exploding further, China adopted a one-child policy, which means that many children have had to grow up in orphanages. Many children have been adopted worldwide from those orphanages, but there are SO many still left behind.
“In contemporary China, the one child is the future of the family,” Borden said. “How can anyone compete without that (family)? “We have to show those kids that people care about them.”

Borden ended up in Tianjin by accident. Through an interview with Sparrow for Dwight Hall, he learned about China Care and its volunteer program.

Borden had taken one year of Chinese language and was interested in China, so he applied at the last minute and was accepted.
He laughed when remembering that one year of Chinese was not nearly enough.
“I thought I was way more prepared than I actually was. I was the king of charades by the time I left,” he quipped.

His Chinese vocabulary improved while he helped with babies and played basketball and taught English to the older kids. The children at Tianjin range from infants to their 20s.
Borden was isolated somewhat at the orphanage, mainly because he could not go out alone. He explained that l because he is black, the orphanage workers were concerned for his safety. Many of the people he’d met had never seen a black man before.

“They all wanted to touch my hair,” he said, smiling.

But he did manage to get to McDonald’s on his own. “The .Golden Arches were just a block away from the orphanage,” he said.
The orphanage’s director, fondly called Fung Mama, took him under her wing. And throughout his stay there, he saw other student volunteers come and go, but no one else actually stayed in the orphanage. “Living there made it more meaningful, just experiencing every day with the children,” Borden said.
Borden said, however, that it a wasn't always easy. “It was tough. There was a lot of forced alone time, time for introspection.”

But China Care does get its volunteers together from time to time, and Borden said they toured the Great Wall together and he was able to meet with other volunteers throughout his stay.

While the organization has grown and an executive director has just been hired in China to facilitate its day-to-day operations, China Care relies heavily on its volunteers.
And China Care urges young people to volunteer.

Dalio founded the organization when he was only 16.
“My advice to teens is, ‘You can,’ ” Dalio said. “We want to empower kids here.
“We use this as a vehicle to pass on the power I got from this to other kids,” Dalio added. “They don't realize the impact they can have.”

Calling himself a “venture philanthropist,” Dalio wants to give back to a country that embraced him when he was just 11 years old.

For a year, Dalio lived with a family in China because he wanted “to live the life of a Chinese. That year, I fell in love with China. I wanted to repay their kindness.”
So when he was 16, after visiting an orphanage in China with a family friend, he saw “there was a lot to be done, and this started.”
He began by going to friends and family to raise money to help the children. Eventually, it he ended up on Oprah Winfrey’s s show and was named one of Teen People’s top teens, which garnered a lot of publicity, donations and volunteers.

So far this year, China Care has facilitated 150 surgeries, assisted with 50 adoptions, helped place 100 kids in foster care and renovated three orphanages.

The China Care Children’s Home has just opened. Through the home, high-risk children will be helped through surgeries and nourishment in order to make them adoptable.
China Care works with a core group of orphanages. It began with Tianjin and expanded to orphanages in Shanxi province.

China Care’s annual fundraiser held recently at the Belle Haven Country Club in Greenwich netted almost $500,000. Musicians Sheryl Crow and Buddy Guy entertained at the exclusive, invitation-only event that was $1,000 per plate.

“Just $1,000 can help save two lives,” Dalio said.

One hundred percent of donations goes directly to the children. All China Care overhead is underwritten by its Board of Directors.
“The concept of adoption is to link two cultures,” Dalio said, “and the concept of China Care is to unite these cultures of my childhood.”

For more information about China Care Foundation, visit www.chinacare.org or e-mail info@chinacare.org.

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Karen Olson, the Register's travel editor, has a daughter from Hunan province and is a member of Families with Children from China. She can be reached at travel@nhregister.com or 789-5705.