SOAR Foundation was chartered in 1995. Since its first scholarship awarding in 1996, it has awarded 16600 scholarships to poor but deserving students in China's rural areas (the junior high awardees get $100 per year, the senior high awardees get $300 per year).The number of awardees in a single year also grows from 262 in 1996 to 2,661 in 2007.