In 1999, Sakolsky was teaching English at Luoyang Foreign Language School in Henan, China, through the U.S.-China Teachers Exchange Program.
* He saw a television report about Yin Yuzhen (殷玉珍), a Chinese farmer in Inner Mongolia who was fighting desertification by planting trees in the Maowusu Sandy Land.
* Deeply moved by her efforts, he spent about two months raising US$5,000 and donated the money to help Yin and her husband buy seedlings.
* Those seedlings eventually grew into more than 50,000 trees, contributing to a dramatic transformation of the formerly barren landscape.
* The two lost contact for more than 20 years. In 2026, they were finally reunited when Sakolsky returned to China. He visited Yin’s home and the forest they had helped create together.