The Friendship Association of Chinese Students and Scholars launched a fundraising campaign in February to help support the family of Kui Zou, a Chinese visiting scholar who was killed in a car accident Jan. 22.

According to a newsletter published on their website, FACSS raised a total of $24,378.99 and 12,322.07 Chinese yuan by the time the campaign ended March 31.

Lampo Leong, a faculty advisor of FACSS, served as one of the supervisory deputies during the campaign.

Leong said that FACSS has spent $3,675.01 on Zou’s funeral as well as $600 for two months in rend for her apartment. FACSS will give the rest of the donation money to Zou’s family within a few weeks, Leong said.

FACSS chairman Xiaoyu Guo made the initial decision of launching the fundraising campaign in January.

“The whole process went as expected,” Guo said. “We established donation stations across the campus early in February, and we tried to open as many methods of donation as possible to simplify the procedure.”

Bochao Sun, a junior majoring in journalism, said he donated $25 at the donation station in the MU Student Center during the campaign.

“The campaign was very well-organized,” Sun said. “We were able to donate without any difficulty.”

Students have brought more attention to the campaign through spreading information on the social media sites such as Facebook and WeChat.

“I reposted the donation links on my timeline several times,” Sun said. “That’s the only and best way I can help.”

Dong Xu, who is chair of the Computer Science Department and a supervisory deputies for the campaign, said many of donations came from out-of-state Chinese compatriots who received the information through social networks.

“There are no particularly large donations,” Xu said. “The number is achieved by the joint efforts of a large amount of warm-hearted people.”

Even though the campaign targeted the Chinese community, there were many contributions from the local non-Chinese communities.

“Local American students have contributed to a significant percentage of the donations,” Xu said. “Some institutions, such as the School of Engineering, have played an important role in the campaign by mobilizing students and faculty to participate in the campaign.”

Xu said the FACSS campaign for Zou has been the best organized fundraising campaign within the Chinese student community since he came to MU in 2003.

Students and scholars from FACSS have also kept in contact with Zou’s family since February.

Xu said he is excited that Jie Peng, Zou’s younger brother, is considering coming to the U.S. to study.

“(Peng) has the idea of attending MU,” Xu said. “He wants to fulfill the dream that his sister was not able to.”