Charity is a time-honored tradition of our people. The friendship and mutual assistance among us are all behaviors of voluntarily dedicating love and helping others.

Moreover, charity has existed since ancient times. The names of our ancient charitable institutions are different, and the sources of charitable funds also come from both private and royal acts.

In fact, the best charity in ancient times was social relief. When we watch some movies and TV dramas, we often see some non-members and officials giving porridge. These are also spontaneous charitable acts by the people and some wealthy people and officials.

The earliest charity in our country actually dates back to the Zhou Dynasty. This traditional virtue has a long history.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, more emphasis was placed on social relief, and the princes and military children also attached great importance to charity work.

According to "Zuo Zhuan", every time a natural or man-made disaster occurred in Wu Wang Helu, he would go to the disaster area to visit the people, comfort the people, and help some poor households.

During the reign of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, he also arranged for his ministers to go out to give porridge to those affected by disasters.

It is also more common for people to give porridge. In the seventh year of Taihe in the Northern Wei Dynasty (AD 483), there was a famine in Jizhou and Dingzhou, and the local virtuous people "made porridge on the road to eat."

"Book of Wei: The Chronicles of Emperor Xiaowen" records that this move saved hundreds of thousands of people.

Moreover, in addition to giving porridge, the ancients also had other main contents when doing charity.

Provide basic medical services to disaster victims, the elderly, the weak, the sick and the disabled.

There are such philanthropic deeds in every period and every dynasty, and I cannot list them all.

But in the Ming and Qing dynasties, private charity organizations also expanded further, which of course was also related to everyone's sufficient financial resources.

When we watch movies and TV series, there are many charities, etc., which are actually charities.

Guild halls opened by Huizhou merchants often have "funeral homes", "graves" and "yizhuang" attached to provide free services to the deceased and sick.

In addition to individual voluntary donations, these funds come from sources such as shared fund-raising and commissions. Of course, most of the commissions come from workshop businessmen.

In addition to folk philanthropic deeds, in ancient times, charitable deeds were mostly performed by specialized agencies established by temples and governments. Some also formed systems to activate relief mechanisms regularly or in emergencies.

After reading this, do you know how charity funds came from in ancient times?