Written by CAPA-JRC Reporter Claire Yu
On Saturday, July 17, 2021, at 7:30 in the evening, the annual CAPA-MC Membership Meeting and Dr. Alan Cheung Scholarship Award Ceremony was held via Zoom. Current Board of Education (BOE) member Judith Docca and former BOE President Mike Dorso were present at the event.
CAPA-MC Membership Meeting
The meeting started off with a report from CAPA-MC President Tingmei Chau on the progress of CAPA-MC this past year. Chau highlighted the organization’s participation in multiple advocacy activities, including Anti-AAPI Hate, May Heritage Month, and MCPS policies such as budget advisory and Asian American Community Coalition Building.
As for service activities, CAPA-MC has held 18 online seminars and events with more than 1,000 attendees and over 10 community partners, as well as two in-person Anti-AAPI Hate events with over 800 participants. There are currently over 50 adult mentors and parent volunteers and over 100 student volunteers in CAPA-MC who have gathered more than 9,000 hours of volunteer work in total last year.
After the President’s report, each of the Committee Chairs and club mentors shared their respective updates. Julie Yang shared some of CAPA-MC’s major community collaboration activities, as well as all events during May Heritage Month, such as Cooking with Chef Jassi.
Next, Hongbin Yu gave a brief overview of CAPA JRC’s recent activities. The club has written 14 Chinese articles, produced one YouTube video, and executed many self-initiated projects like the Asian Cuisine Project. Additionally, CAPA JRC received the Governor’s Citation and Rho Psi Community Service Award.
June Zhou presented a COVID-19 special report on specific programs and activities CAPA has done that relate to the pandemic along with updates on the CAPA Youth Service Club. Hong Tao also reported on this year’s President Volunteer Service Award, which has two Teen Gold awardees, one Teen Silver awardee, and one Teen Bronze awardee. Finally, Vivian Jiang went over the progress of the CAPA iTeach Club during the pandemic.
Dr. Alan Cheung Scholarship Award Ceremony
The 2021 Dr. Alan Cheung Community Leadership Scholarship was awarded to nine individual applicants: Aileen Qi, Allison Xu, Evelyn Shue, Joy Jiang, Lucy Wu, Robert Sun, Sirui Xue, Sophia Shiu, and Vivian Li. The three group awardees are the CAPA iTeach Club, Eco SWIFT, and Young Artists Music Society. Five other individual applicants, Emma Song, Katherine Tao, Lucy Chen, Chelsea Tu, and Rosemary Yang, were given Honorable Mention.
About the Individual Awardees
Aileen Qi is a rising junior at Montgomery Blair High School. Aileen co-founded STEM to the Sky, launched the Aid the Angels fundraiser and Paper Bridges Drive, and is a trained and certified Teen CERT, or first responder. This summer, she is working as an Adventist HealthCare volunteer.
Allison Xu is a rising sophomore at Walter Johnson High School. She led an initiative for fighting against Anti-AAPI hate by promoting Asian authors for May Heritage month, in addition to the “Story-Writing Package for Grades 1-5” fundraiser, which delivered story-writing books to children in local hospitals. Allison is also a writer for the MoCo Student, where she has written opinions about emerging national issues.
Evelyn Shue is a rising junior at Richard Montgomery High School. Evelyn is a filmmaker, writer, and previously served as a Director of Reporting in the CAPA JRC. She has coordinated weekly virtual English lessons for schoolchildren in rural China and created weekly English recordings to publish on platforms accessed by English learners worldwide.
Joy Jiang is a rising sophomore at Richard Montgomery High School. Last year, she founded CREATE Tutoring, a free tutoring service for young students, which has fundraised 400 dollars to donate to nearby schools. Joy has also written and edited articles for the CAPA JRC, prepared teaching materials at Lakewood Elementary School, and volunteered at Montgomery County Future Vote.
Lucy Wu is a rising senior at Winston Churchill High School. She has served as the YouTube Director of the CAPA JRC and the leader of the community teaching team at the CAPA iTeach Club. Lucy coordinated and hosted an eight-session webinar at Code a Wish, collaborated with other native English speakers from high schools across the country in Circle LCL, and organized sixteen weeks of classes on STEM-related topics for the FIRST Tech Challenge STEM Outreach.
Robert Sun is a rising senior at Winston Churchill High School. Robert is the team leader for the Branch Out! Montgomery County Chapter, a Director of Reporting in the CAPA JRC, and a student ambassador for Montgomery County Future Vote. He has worked as a volunteer for many CCACC events, and designed and led the development of Covid9Teens, a community project dedicated to promoting pandemic relief efforts.
Sirui Xue is a rising senior at Montgomery Blair High School. Currently, she is the captain of the Code Girls Club, peer leader for the Math Team, and captain of the Varsity Co-Ed Golf Team at her school. Sirui has organized the Women in STEM Seminar and a coding competition for middle and high school girls, and is working on research at the University of California Santa Barbara this summer.
Sophia Shiu is a rising junior at Thomas Wootton High School. Sophia has worked as an assistant teacher at Shou Chu Summer Camp, President of the SGA Board, and Fundraising Director for the 2AM Post. She is a co-founder of Girls For Business, an organization impacting girls in over 30 different countries.
Vivian Li is a recently graduated senior from Montgomery Blair High School. She founded ClimatEdu, an online climate course for middle and high school students, managing six subteams. After finishing the project in March, Vivian is now running CAMP-CLIMATEDU and working on additional content.
About the Group Awardees
The CAPA iTeach Club is a 38-member organization founded in 2018 with the purpose to serve Asian seniors by providing IT help and English classes. Due to COVID-19, the club now teaches 14 online English classes weekly to over 120 local and out-of-state seniors. The club hopes to have broken the barrier of the pandemic and given back to the senior community through its services.
Eco SWIFT is a club dedicated to raising environmental awareness in many ways, such as online seminars, competitions, and information sessions. The club has hosted multiple cleanup events and collaborated with other organizations with similar goals in order to have a greater impact on the community. Looking forward, Eco SWIFT plans to take more active approaches as COVID-19 guidelines clear up and continue offering virtual services to children who cannot make it onsite.
The Young Artists Music Society (YAMS) is a student-led nonprofit founded in 2019 by Lucy Chen with the mission of spreading love in the form of music to all people in the community. YAMS has connected the community through virtual concerts and music lessons during the past year, and is currently hosting live concerts at local senior centers. In the future, YAMS hopes to expand its services to include musical therapy for seniors and special needs people and continue to fundraise for musical education in Montgomery County.
Overall, these two events proved the success of CAPA this past year and showcased the impressive achievements of youths in community service.
This article was provided by Chinese American Parents Association Junior Reporter Club (CAPA JRC) with members who interviewed, audio recorded, wrote, translated, and video recorded. CAPA JRC has 25 Montgomery County middle to high school students. They have created a bilingual platform delivering news and serving the community.
Instagram: @capa_jrc
Blog: https://www.capajrc.org/