II. Community Activities
Here, I summarize the activities of the Chinese American Parent Association of BCC in 2023.
Within the community, we organized various youth clubs, including special needs, public speaking, information gathering, and summer activities. Led by Qiao Ye, the special needs project held weekly tennis training and ice skating activities, attracting many volunteers. The youth public speaking project, organized by me, has conducted two training sessions, and during the summer, lectures on the contributions of Asian Americans were given by Ye Yong. This summer, Lin Hanfang organized a chess club and math tutoring, Xu Cuimei organized a natural ecology club, Xie Xiaofei organized a band, and Huang Sujian organized a handicraft club. The information collection group, led by Xie Muhui, spent several hours each week collecting and organizing information on summer programs, internships, and scholarships, sharing it with everyone before the end of the year. Utilize these resources to apply for your preferred programs, as some applications start at the end of the year.
Simultaneously, we organized some activities for the general community. We conducted numerous online lectures covering topics from the Asian history of child education, mental health, to the Spring planting and graceful aging series of a good life. Starting from August of this year, I invited Chinese tax experts to explain tax knowledge to Chinese families every second Tuesday night of the month, including how to apply for college scholarships. These lectures received positive feedback from the community.
Notably, our association started using ChatGPT early on to design meeting content, such as the parent-child dialogue on gaming time hosted by Ye Yong's family and the interview with BOE members on public services hosted by Zhu Yanxin. Initially, I was hesitant to join the association due to the pain of English writing. The advent of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 was a great help to me. Now, I seek assistance from ChatGPT for most English document editing related to association work. Of course, personal thoughts and innovative ideas are also essential. I hope Chinese Americans make good use of ChatGPT to overcome our language disadvantage with mainstream American society.
In addition to online activities, we also conducted some larger-scale offline events. In May of this year, I invited the Baltimore County Fire Department to collaborate with the BCC Chinese School for a CPR training session for our community. At the end of this year, our association's Liu Hua and several volunteers organized a Chinese ethnic costume exhibition to raise funds for the association. Meanwhile, Qiao Ye, the head of the special needs club, and the CAPA-BC band organized a concert to raise funds for special needs children. Many thanks to the diligent efforts of numerous volunteers; these events were very successful, with participation exceeding our expectations, enhancing community cohesion, and increasing the association's influence. Several offline events received support from community friends. We want to thank the Chinese doctors who sponsored the CPR training, and the support and care from Zhou Lizhi of Yummy Asian Bistro and Wu Ping of Chuan Zhi Wei, who sponsored year-end events.
In terms of cooperation with other Chinese American parent associations in surrounding areas, our BCC received strong support from active individuals in Harvey, Montgomery County, and North Virginia, especially from Harvey CAPA founder Xu Jing. Every time I asked her about the association, she patiently explained. Mr. Guo Haoyu from Montgomery County helped us find many resources related to the association's website, and Shu Hong from Montgomery County told me about their initial stage. Yan Yuzhou, the head of CAPA in North Virginia, provided us with information on outstanding contributions of Asians to the United States. Mike Nie, an instructor from North Virginia, gave us free tax knowledge lectures, trained children's public speaking skills, and generously donated through his family foundation. It is worth noting that in July of this year, Jiang Mali from BCC sacrificed her rest time, spent the entire weekend in Annapolis attending the joint meeting of various parent associations led by Xu Jing. Cao Bing, a former resident of BCC, also attended the meeting. The meeting mainly discussed the purpose and focus of parent associations and proposed future goals.
The development of the association is inseparable from the efforts of volunteers. In addition to parents mentioned earlier or not mentioned, our community's children also took action. Volunteers from various clubs mentioned earlier include Jin Wei Lau from the chess club; Michelle Guo and Talia Jacobs from the math tutoring club; Junchen Yuan and Yunyun Dang from the information collection group; Anthony Liu, Sam Ma, Steven Ma, Andrew Zhang, Sammy Zhang, Crystal Xu, Andy Yan from the band; Aaron Ren, Carl Kamron, Jonathan Yin, Max Han, Albert Li, Eric Sun, Andrew Guan, Emily Ying, Jamie Zhu, Simon Qian, Crystal Wang, Crystal Xu, Andrew Zhang, Sammy Zhang, Sean Jiang, Derick Ling, Yongqi Liu, Jung Wei Lau, Victor Shi from the special needs club; and Sherie Tantao helped publish articles and news on the association's website. We hope more children will join the volunteer team of the association, experience the importance of community from an early age, and contribute to building a strong community.
In August of this year, we organized the first Community Service Award in the name of the association, encouraging youth who volunteered for more than a hundred hours within a year and over twenty hours in the BCC Chinese American Association. As the chair of the Community Service Award Committee, Yu Nan selected three winners: Aaron Ren, Carl Kamdin, and Sherie Tantao. With their outstanding volunteer spirit, they won the Community Service Award and set a positive example for other youth in the community. What is most pleasing is that children volunteer not for rewards or completing school tasks but to help others to the best of their ability, truly embodying the spirit of volunteering (to be continued).
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