A candlelight vigil to commemorate those lost or affected by the earthquake in China and to offer an opportunity for people to donate money to disaster relief is slated for May 16 from 7 to 8 p.m. in Sage Chapel on the Cornell campus.

On May 12 a massive earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale devastated a large part of China's Sichuan Province and resulted in a death toll of more than 22,000 with thousands more missing.

"Since many mainland Chinese students at Cornell are from that part of China, our community and student life are also subject to direct impact from the earthquake," says Cornell graduate student Shawn Kong of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA), which has organized the vigil with the Mainland China Students Association, Cornell United Religious Work and the First Ithaca Chinese Christian Church.

To make online donations, the CSSA recommends contributing through Mercy Corps at http://www.mercycorps.org/, where Western Union will match donations up to $250,000; Tsinghua Challenge Education at http://tsinghuafoundation.org/earthquake08/index.html; or the American Red Cross at http://www.redcross.org/.

For more information on the earthquake and how to donate, see http://www.chinaview.cn/08quake/.