On a Saturday morning earlier this month, a group of Harvard students met at a local church to help adopted Chinese children fashion panda masks out of paper plates, cotton balls and pieces of black, faux fur.

Every other week, members of Harvard China Care (HCC) plan Asian-inspired activities for “Dumplings,” a playgroup of adopted children from China, at the First Congregational Church in Cambridge in an effort to bring their native culture closer to their new American homes.

“We’re just hoping to establish a network of solidarity and support for these children,” says Gary M. Cooney ’05, president of HCC.

The student group is a chapter of China Care, a nonprofit organization founded by Matt R. Dalio ’06, when he was only 16. Since then, his program has garnered national attention, including an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

According to Dalio, one of his main reasons for coming to Harvard was its reputation as a place where community service thrives. Earlier this school year, Dalio, also a Crimson editor, began working to establish a local chapter of China Care at Harvard.

By December, HCC was recognized as an official student group by the College.

HCC and its parent organization, however, have different immediate aims. China Care facilitates the adoption of orphans from Tianjin, China, coordinates operations of smaller chapters in the United States and sends medical teams abroad to treat the children.

HCC, on the other hand, has a more localized perspective. It strives to instill in local Chinese children a sense of pride in their heritage, while allowing them an opportunity to play and meet other kids with similar experiences, according to Dalio.

CHICKEN AND EAGLE

“Kids need to play with kids who look like themselves, and have the same experience. And families need to talk.” says Polly Welch, a parent of one of the Dumplings participants.

Besides making panda masks, the student group plays other games that are culturally familiar to the adopted children, such as chicken and eagle. In this game, the children are divided into chicken and the eagle teams. The eagle team chases after the chickens, trying to catch and make them into members of their team.

While their group tries to focus on Chinese culture, those who help to run it come from diverse backgrounds. Aside from Cooney, an international student from Ireland, HCC also counts a Bulgarian student among its eight most active members.

Louise E. Weber describes the students involved in HCC as enthusiastic and wonderful, and says that she was particularly impressed with the international flavor of the group.

She says her usually shy daughter, six-year old Lilly, loves the playgroup.

“She’s out the door before I am, ready to go,” Weber says.

HCC advertised the playgroup to adoptive parents in the New England area by sending an e-mail to the Families with Children from China (FCC) list.

The participants are generally female and while most of them are in preschool, first or second grade, some of the children are preadolescents.

Welch, the adoptive parent of a 12-year-old participant, says there is a need for a support group specific to adolescent girls.

“Nobody is taking on this front of the cohort, and [older adopted children] are facing really fundamental issues—issues of identity,” says Welch.

Cooney says HCC is looking into the development of such a network for older children from China.

Since its December founding, HCC’s e-mail list has grown to about 100 people.

HCC is also looking to develop an inter-collegiate relationship with chapters at other schools. Apart from having three other local chapters at high schools in Connecticut—the home state of Dalio—Cooney said a Yale chapter is also in the works.

There is also an interest in starting branches at University of Tennessee and University of Chicago, according to Dalio.

Dalio says this expansion is in line with one of his original goals of establishing China care—teaching Chinese culture to Americans.

“One of my goals is to be that bridge, and to let people on both sides know how amazing the people on the other side are,” says Dalio.

BUILDING THE BRIDGE

Dalio says he first fell in love with Chinese culture in 1995 while spending a year abroad in China.

But it wasn’t until he was looking for an Eagle Scout project at home, that Dalio learned about adoption problems surrounding Chinese orphans. Dalio eventually founded China Care in the summer of 2000.

When starting his organization, Dalio says he received support from his father, Raymond, a Harvard Business School graduate, and Gu Zeqing, now director of China Care.

Madam Gu, as Dalio calls her, helped Dalio set up the Chinese side of the organization, introducing him to the China Charity Federation, orphanages in Tianjin and Shanxi and children’s hospitals in Beijing.

Since 2003, China Care has facilitated 37 adoptions, according to Dalio.

“We haven’t assisted any adoptions that have gone bad,” says Dalio.

But assisting in adoptions is not all the organization does, according to Dalio.

“In China, we do the extreme, life-saving surgeries [like open heart surgeries and operations on burn victims] and on the other end of the spectrum, simple operations like [fixing] cleft lip, club foot,” says Dalio.

Dalio also says he is thinking about doing something to promote more contact between the deaf children in China and the deaf community in the United States. Cooney, who spent last summer leading volunteer work in Chinese orphanages, says this year HCC will launch a greater volunteer program.

According to Dalio, 11 undergraduates and three to five non-Harvard affiliates will work in orphanages in China this summer. He says HCC is currently working on finding sponsors.

“$1,500 gets a volunteer over there so that they can apply their knowledge,” says Dalio.