Pennsylvania teacher’s $5,000 donation helps turn China’s Maowusu desert into a forest of 50,000 trees

Pennsylvania teacher Ronald Sakolsky’s $5,000 donation helps transform China’s desert into a forest of 50,000 trees. (Photo: Getty Images) Ronald Sakolsky, a 69-year-old retired teacher from Pennsylvania, recently returned to China for the first time in 26 years and was stunned to see what had become of the once-barren landscape he had helped support. A stretch of desert in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region has been transformed into a lush forest containing around 50,000 mature trees.Sakolsky was teaching English in China’s Henan province in 1999 when he came across a television report about Yin Yuzhen, a farmer and “sand-control worker” who had begun planting trees in the Mu Us Desert, also known as the Maowusu Desert.Yin had started planting trees more than a decade earlier after moving to the desert region following her marriage. Determined to make her surroundings greener and combat the harsh environment, she continued planting trees despite the difficult conditions.Ronald Sakolsky reunites with Yin Yuzhen after 26 years. (Photo: Getty Images)Moved by her story, Sakolsky raised $5,000 and sent the money to Yin to help her plant more trees. The amount was many times her ann...