Chinese man shelters more than 700 young drifters, helps them return home, fosters some
Man who has no children of his own opens his heart, his home to unfortunate young people who have fallen on hard times
A philanthropic man in China who has never married nor had his own kids, has emerged as a “father” to more than 700 of the country’s children.
Wang Wanlin, 80, from Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province has been providing shelter to wandering children he found on the street since 1979.
Wang met his first “son” on the street one evening when he was 34.
The 15-year-old child was shivering in the cold weather, and told Wang he just escaped from an exploitative coal mine in another Zhejiang city.
He said he was tricked into going there from his hometown in Jiangsu province north of Shanghai. Wang took him home and bought him a train ticket a week later.
For Wang, the child’s rescue was also a salvation for himself.