US teacher to reunite with China's desert-greening hero after 26 years

A retired American teacher who helped support afforestation efforts in Ordos, North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, more than two decades ago has been invited back to China after reconnecting with the woman whose desert-greening campaign he once supported.

According to the Chinese Embassy in the United States, Ambassador Xie Feng invited Ronald Sakolsky and other Americans to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival at the embassy on June 19. During the event, Sakolsky received a Chinese visa and an invitation to revisit China.

The invitation came just weeks after Sakolsky was reunited online with Yin Yuzhen, a national model worker renowned for her decades-long battle against desertification in the Mu Us Sandy Land.

In May, Yin launched a public search for the American donor who had helped fund her tree-planting efforts 26 years ago. Her appeal quickly drew widespread attention across China, ultimately reconnecting the two old friends.

Sakolsky, a retired high school history teacher, was teaching at a foreign language school in Luoyang, Henan province, when he learned about Yin's struggle against desertification through a television program in 1999. Impressed by her determination, he contacted several organizations in the US and raised $5,000 to support Yin and her family's afforestation work.

"I am not a celebrity," Sakolsky said during the embassy event. "I am simply an ordinary teacher who wanted to do something for China to express my gratitude."

For Yin, the donation arrived at a crucial time. Although the money could have greatly improved her family's living conditions, she spent nearly all of it on tree seedlings, keeping only a single US dollar bill as a memento.

At the time, the Mu Us Sandy Land was one of China's most severely desertified regions. When Yin married and moved there in 1985, shifting dunes surrounded her home, and sandstorms frequently buried roads and doorways.

Determined to change her environment, Yin and her husband Bai Wanxiang devoted decades to planting trees and restoring degraded land. Through years of experimentation, they developed effective methods to stabilize sand dunes and improve seedling survival rates, gradually transforming barren desert into thriving woodland.

After Sakolsky left China, the two lost contact. Yet Yin never stopped planting trees. She often said she wanted to prove that the American teacher's donation had not been wasted.

Today, Yin and her family have established more than 70,000 mu (about 4,667 hectares) of forest and vegetation. More than 50,000 trees are believed to have grown from the seedlings purchased with Sakolsky's donation.

Their story mirrors the broader ecological transformation of the Mu Us Sandy Land. Following decades of restoration efforts, about 80 percent of the sandy land is now covered by vegetation, turning vast stretches of once-barren terrain into green landscapes.

Sakolsky is expected to return to China soon to see firsthand how a $5,000 donation helped grow a forest, restore a landscape, and sustain a friendship that has endured across continents for more than a quarter of a century.