Zoë Lief, of Valencia, is looking to help a whole new generation of orphans at the Lianjiang City Social Welfare Institute in China after her sister was adopted from there years ago.

“When I was 4 years old, I found out that my mom was going to have a baby,” said Lief. “But, instead of the baby coming from her tummy, the baby was going to come from her heart.”

Lief has set up a GoFundMe page to help spread awareness and raise funds for her project, and as of Feb. 22, the page has raised $880 of the $5,000 goal from 14 different donors in just 4 days.

Shortly after, Lief traveled to China with her parents and found out just how her new baby sister was going to come into her life.

That was in 2006, when the Lief family took their newest member home with them, a 1-year-old girl named Piper.

“Piper knew from a young age about her adoption,” Lief said. “She frequently asked questions about her birth mom, where she came from, and who raised her for the first year of her life.”

“We told her about her orphanage, and how she lived with several other babies who were all raised by caretakers.”

When Piper was about to turn 10 years old, she had some unusual requests for her birthday. “Instead of dolls and stuffed animals, Piper asked all of her friends to give her bottles and baby clothes,” Lief said.

“We collected several items for the babies who haven’t yet been adopted from her orphanage and shipped them overseas to her old ‘home,’ Lianjiang City Social Welfare Institute.”

This inspired Lief to learn more about China and the country’s One-Child Law, learning that many young girls just like her sister are abandoned every day due to families preferring to have a male heir.

China has long had legal limits on the amount of children a family could have due to fears of overpopulation. While the law has relaxed in recent years, it still limits households to only two children, leaving many children abandoned or given up.

Lief called her personal project “Her Big Brown Eyes” in reference to the feature that all of the babies in her sister’s orphanage shared.

“I want people to realize how inhumanely these babies are being treated and work with me to help lessen this problem,” said Lief.

“In addition, I am attempting to raise money to purchase several baby items, like my sister did for her tenth birthday, and donate them all to her orphanage and other orphanages around China.”