/PRZWT/ Recently, Meituan and Yifan Foundation jointly released the "Five-Year Report of the Meituan Rural Children's Playground Charity Project". The report shows that by the end of 2025, this project has built 4,535 multi-functional rural children's playgrounds in 3,381 towns across 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), involving 181.3 thousand charity merchants, 146.7 thousand caring netizens, training 5,600 rural kindergarten teachers, directly benefiting 611,000 rural children, and raising over 470 million yuan in donations. It has become one of the largest and most widely covered charity projects in China's preschool education sector.
This project was jointly initiated by Meituan and Yifun Foundation in 2020, aiming to respond to the national population strategy and the rural revitalization strategy, and to address the significant demand for unbalanced preschool education development in underdeveloped areas. Actively taking action, it responded to the actual problems such as relatively poor outdoor activity venues, single game facilities and teaching content, and limited professional support for kindergarten principals and teachers. Over the past five years, the project has used "playground" as a pivot, gradually building a systematic support system covering infrastructure construction, teacher capacity building, activation of the internal development of kindergartens, and expansion of various issues.
From "seeing the need" to systematic response
Paying attention to children is equivalent to focusing on the future strategy of the country. Early childhood development is of utmost importance, and the issue of children's development is one of the common core focuses of many major development strategies in our country.
In September 2020, the first rural children's playground of the project was built in Xingfa Township Center Kindergarten in Hezhang County, Bijie City, Guizhou Province. At that time, this kindergarten was facing difficulties such as poor site conditions, outdated facilities, and loss of students and teachers. The emergence of the new playground was like a timely breeze. The cheerful sounds broke the previous silence. The children changed from being timid to being enthusiastic and confident. The number of students increased, the teaching staff became stable and younger, and the kindergarten was rated as a "county-level model kindergarten". Principal Zou Hong said, "We never expected that a new playground could bring such a big change."
These changes are the result of the project's insight into the demand for preschool education in rural areas. Through field visits and research, Meituan and Yifun Fund gained a deep understanding of the needs for preschool education in underdeveloped rural areas and explored the establishment of a multi-dimensional intervention solution covering "infrastructure, teacher training, internal driving force, and issue expansion" and other actions.
In terms of infrastructure construction, the multi-functional playground laid out by the project adopts a modular floor design, featuring shock absorption, water drainage and anti-slip properties. It has been upgraded to version 3.0. Starting from the basic functional areas, it gradually incorporates elements such as traffic signs, environmental education corners, and sports game equipment packages. This not only ensures safety but also enriches the fun factor.
In terms of talent cultivation, the project has conducted 92 teacher training sessions and 12 director training sessions, covering 5,600 rural preschool teachers and 603 directors and representatives from education bureaus. A complete training system of "concept - method - practice - reflection" has been established, helping rural teachers update their educational concepts and master the skills of designing and organizing outdoor games. At the same time, by cultivating local research and teaching experts and establishing a platform for director exchanges, professional strength has been continuously injected into rural preschool education.
Collaboration among government, enterprises and society enables projects to provide precise services to meet the needs.
How can we ensure that social welfare resources are accurately allocated to the children in the rural areas who are in greatest need? To ensure the precise alignment of resources, the project has actively explored a collaborative mechanism. In the initial stage, through the coordination of the Central United Front Work Department, it collaborated with local united front and education departments. The education bureau screened the required kindergartens, while the One Foundation was responsible for the professional implementation and acceptance, integrating the efficiency of public welfare into the public service process.
Through the joint efforts of the Central United Front Work Department, with the support of relevant departments at all levels such as the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Education Department, etc., playgrounds for rural children have been established in 1,169 kindergartens in 9 cities and prefectures across the province. This has formed a replicable and promotable "Guizhou model" covering all 9 cities and prefectures.
In 2024, under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Meituan signed a framework agreement with the Regional Collaboration Promotion Department and officially launched the "National Rural Revitalization Key Assistance County Action - Meituan Rural Children Care Program". Resources were systematically integrated and efforts were precisely focused on 160 key assistance counties designated by the state. By the end of October 2025, all these counties had been fully covered. 901 playgrounds were built, over 86 million yuan was invested, benefiting 117,000 children, and 1,100 teachers received training.
The new ecosystem of "Everyone for Charity" brings together extensive participation from the entire society.
The first rural children's playground in Guizhou, which was established in 2020, was funded by donations from nearly 1,000 public welfare merchants on the Meituan platform. Love gathered on the Meituan Charity platform. "Everyone's Charity" has been the vision and DNA of One Foundation since its establishment 18 years ago. To gather scattered social love and donations, the project relied on Meituan technology and independently developed a donation tracking system (DTS) to make the flow of each donation (20 yuan corresponding to one floor) traceable in real time, showing the exact row and column of each floor in the playground and precisely to the laying position. And through the QR code sign on the playground, the donors could be "seen" to achieve full transparency of the entire process of "donation - execution - feedback".
Jin Jiping, an associate professor at Peking University's Law School and the director of the Peking University Center for Nonprofit Organization Law, stated: This "visibility" is not only the disclosure of information, but also the granting of a sense of participation and the reconstruction of the trust mechanism - it enables public welfare to emerge from the doubts of "black box operations" and move towards public trust based on digital rationality.
Professionalism and transparency have enabled the project to gain more trust and commitment. By the end of 2025, the project has mobilized the participation of over 1.813 million public welfare businesses and over 1.467 million caring netizens. Businesses can incorporate public welfare donations into their daily operations, and consumers will automatically make small donations for each transaction they complete. At the same time, the project has opened up various participation channels such as monthly donations, hometown donations, and consumption donations, forming a nationwide public welfare model involving "platform + businesses + users + employees". Among them, the "hometown donation" has helped netizens in 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government) in China contribute to their hometowns.
The project extensively connects professional forces: It collaborates with expert teams from universities such as Beijing Normal University, Shaanxi Normal University, Capital Normal University, Sichuan Normal University, Guizhou Normal University, and Fujian Normal College for Preschool Education. Based on the needs of rural kindergartens, it develops thematic training courses and activities, and conducts a series of teacher training programs; it jointly initiates the "Champion's Hometown Charity Special Project" with the China National Sports Foundation, inviting 24 sports champions like Zhang Yufei and Zou Jingyuan to use their professional influence to contribute; it cooperates with the United Nations World Food Programme to explore a comprehensive intervention model of "nutrition + exercise"; it collaborates with the Jiangsu Aid to Iraq Front Command and the School of Sociology of Beijing Normal University to launch the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Awakening Project", integrating traditional culture into children's games.
The growth and hope behind the data
The five-year cultivation achievements are not merely numbers; they represent profound changes beneath the surface. The evaluation data from the Behavioral Health Research Center of Beijing Normal University and the Educational Experimental Economics Research Institute of Shaanxi Normal University have revealed the deep changes brought about by the project:
For children: The playground significantly increased the duration of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for young children each day. The children's motor skills such as strength, balance, and coordination were enhanced, and it was observed that physical activity had a positive promoting effect on cognitive development.
For teachers: Over 90% of the teachers reported an improvement in their teaching abilities, and 97.3% of the principals reported an increase in the teachers' enthusiasm for organizing outdoor activities. The role of teachers has shifted from being the "leader" of the activities to being a "supporter" and "observer", and they now place greater emphasis on stimulating the initiative of children in the games.
For the kindergarten and the community: The safe and colorful playground has enhanced "parent-child trust", and activities such as parent-child sports events have strengthened "parent-child connection". The excellent environment has become a key factor in attracting and retaining students, injecting continuous vitality into rural kindergartens.
These changes not only meet the needs of children's healthy growth, but also contribute at the micro level to the implementation of national strategies such as building an educational powerhouse and promoting rural revitalization.
At the seminar, Zhou Lu, the General Manager of Enterprise Social Responsibility of Meituan and the Secretary-General of Meituan Charity Foundation, stated that Meituan has been fulfilling its related missions and concepts. In 2020, Meituan jointly initiated the Rural Children Playground Charity Project with Yifan Foundation, leveraging "technology + charity" to encourage participation from multiple parties. As the launch site of the project, Guizhou has formed a "Guizhou model" where social forces contribute to the revitalization of rural education. In the future, Meituan will continue to adhere to the policy orientation of "investing in people", using the concept of "technology for people" to build a linkage bond that enables everyone to participate and contribute, gather the positive forces in all directions, and fully leverage the value of the ecological charity system, paving a growth space full of health, happiness and hope for more rural children.
Nie Liangfei, the deputy secretary-general of One Foundation, stated that One Foundation has been committed to the cause of caring for and developing children for a long time. While actively improving the sports and game conditions in rural kindergartens, it also continuously supports the professional growth of rural preschool educators, helping children in the rural preschool stage achieve comprehensive and healthy development. This project integrates the respective advantages of One Foundation and Meituan, jointly creating a new model of digital platform-based public welfare that features multi-party collaboration.
The five-year practice has proven that the achievements of the charity projects start from the proactive response and active actions to the national population strategy and the major strategic deployment for balanced urban and rural education development, start from the profound understanding of social needs, and are accomplished through the full play of each party's professional capabilities and collaborative creation by all parties. In the future, Meituan and Yifan Foundation will continue to actively respond to national strategies, work together with all sectors of society, and promote the upgrading of rural children's playgrounds to "child-friendly outdoor spaces" that integrate sports, cognition, and social development, so that every act of kindness can reach the places where it is most needed, and continuously contribute to the high-quality development of the national population and the balanced development of urban and rural preschool education.
