Then, on an autumn evening in 1999, a brief TV report caught his eye. On the screen was Yin, planting trees by hand with her husband to push back the advancing sands of the Mu Us Desert, he remembered.

　　The story stayed with him. "I was so touched in the heart, I started to cry," he recalled nearly 30 years later. "I honestly cannot tell you why. Something just happened to me. I just felt like I needed to help."

　　Over the next two months, Sakolsky spent his evenings contacting more than a dozen organizations across the United States, determined to help the woman he knew only from that five-minute broadcast. After a series of setbacks, a Boston-based charity agreed to provide a 5,000-U.S. dollar grant with no strings attached.

　　He then spent weeks helping coordinate the cross-border paperwork and communications. By the end of December, word finally came that the money had reached China and was on its way to Yin.

　　"I expected nothing," he said. "You don"t give something expecting something in return. I wanted to thank China and help her make China more beautiful. That was all. I didn"t need a thank-you or anything else."

　　He heard nothing more about the donation until the following May, when the school told him he needed to take a week off for a trip. When he asked his Chinese colleague, Bai Fan, and the New York-based coordinator of the exchange program where he was going, both gave the same reply: "I know, but I cannot tell you, you will cry."

　　He was flown to Hohhot, the regional capital. At dinner, as Sakolsky sat facing the door, it swung open, and in walked a woman in a pink jacket.

　　"That"s the lady from television!" he recalled. "I jumped out of my seat, and I ran up to Ms. Yin and gave her a big hug."