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2010 CPC Annual Report
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About Us
Founded in 1965, the Chinese-American Planning Council, Inc. (CPC) is one of the largest nonprofit providers of educational, social, and community services for Asian Americans in the United States. It now serves over 8,000 people daily through some 70 programs in 29 locations citywide. CPC's mission is to improve the quality of life of Chinese-Americans in New York City by providing access to services, skills, and resources toward the goal of economic self-sufficiency and integration into the American mainstream. CPC Central Office
150 Elizabeth Street
New York, New York 10012
(212) 941-0920 www.cpc-nyc.org Have an idea for the next newsletter? Do you have a program, volunteer, or program achievement that you would like to feature in the next newsletter? Would you like to write an article or have any ideas for articles to include in the next newsletter? Please contact CPC's newsletter staff at volunteer@cpc-nyc.org |
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Summer 2011 VIP Events
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During the summer, the 2011 Summer Interns hosted a series of events to interact with the youth in the community and fundraise for the program. The interns hosted a Hip Hop Dance Workshop, a Self Defense Workshop, and participated in the Hester Street Fair.
On July 9th, the Hip Hop Dance Workshop had 22 attendees ranging from age 6 to 30. The workshop was taught by an intern's sister, who had previously participated in and led a hip-hop group at her university. During the three hour session, the instructor taught a choreographed dance, step by step. At the end of the workshop, the participants performed the dance and felt a sense of accomplishment. Some attendees remarked that the workshop was challenging, but exciting and fun. One of the goals of this workshop was to get youth active and build their confidence. The CPC VIP would also like to thank University Settlement for donating their multi-purpose room for the VIP to use.
On July 16th, 6 young adults participated in a two hour Self Defense Workshop. The instructors of the Self Defense Workshop were Najeeb Alam and Ernesto Sanchez. Najeeb Alam has 15 years of experience in martial arts and Ernesto Sanchez has trained with Najeeb Alam for the past 2 years. The purpose of this self-defense workshop was to teach everyone different techniques to defend oneself. These self-defense techniques can be learned by anyone regardless of their physical build or strength. Participants were taught how to react during certain situations in case of an attack, which gave them a sense of security and confidence.
On July 23rd, the CPC VIP participated in the Hester Street Fair for a second consecutive year. The interns gathered clothes and miscellaneous goods throughout the months of June and July in preparation for the street fair. The VIP would like to thank the Hester Street Fair and its organizer Suhyun Pak for their continued generosity and support for CPC and the other small businesses in the community. Ms. Pak said "The Hester Street Fair wouldn't exist without the support of the community. We are a bit tucked away from the normal tourist routes, which makes for a great authentic New York experience, but without the community getting the word out and giving us all their support, it would be impossible for us to continue. So, to give back, to be of use to the community organizations is a big part of who we are."
Special thanks also goes to General Counsel Sonia Low and the legal interns for bringing in clothes and Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Brake for donating a guitar which sold for over $400. All leftover clothing will be donated closer to the holiday season.
- Written by Janice Wong, Hong Pan and Ray Chin
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Helping Communities Outside of Chinatown
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During the first week of August, the VIP went to help out the community by attending two different community service events. The first was for another non-profit organization called Room to Grow, which specializes in providing baby clothing, toys, and books to low income families to relieve a bit of their financial stress. We had two different groups with a total of twelve volunteers (four interns and eight volunteers) attend two sessions to help them clean their rooms and sort toys and books. The two sessions allowed volunteers to help a community outside of Chinatown and help them understand the benefits of presentation and being organized.
The second community service they participated in was the Penny Harvest hosted by Common Cents. Every year this organization collects funds to start grants aimed to help out youth organizations, homeless shelters, animal rescues, community gardens, and senior centers. Our volunteers helped out with cleaning pennies and gluing them onto pins. The goal this year for Common Cents was to make 30,000 Penny Leader Pins, which will be given to students who take the lead in organizing Penny Harvests for their school. With a group of 22 volunteers and interns, CPC's 2011 VIP put together over 1,000 Penny Leader Pins and prepared 100 sacks of Penny Leader Pins in 3 hours. This community service allowed the volunteers and interns to collaborate and work as a team to become more efficient as a group. They felt proud helping their peers and other emerging leaders.
- Written by Eric Feng
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Open Door Senior Center
Inter-Generation Talent Show
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 Open Door Senior Center held an unprecedented inter-generational fundraising effort on August 5th. The event entailed a variety show that included performances from both Open Door members and the youth of VIP. The collaboration between the young and elderly was a huge success being that it raised over $5,000 for CPC's VIP.
Together, the show intertwined from show to show between young and old alike throughout the event. This included "We Are World" by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, "Tong Hua" by Guang Liang, "I love New York New York" and many more spectacular shows. This event provided an opportunity to further bridge a generational gap between two very different cultures to foster a sense appreciation and reverence for our seniors.
- Written by Harris Leung
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Unraveling Chinatown
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On August 7th, CPC's VIP program had their Unraveling Chinatown Scavenger Hunt fundraising event. The Scavenger Hunt was a game that gives the participants the opportunity to learn and absorb the culture of Chinatown by taking pictures with items and landmarks that are associated with it. A total of fifteen teams participated in the event. The participants were all enthusiastic about learning about Chinatown they had fun doing so.
This event was planned by the volunteers with the help from the interns. It took around five weeks, the majority of the VIP program, to plan out this fundraising idea. The volunteers were very enthusiastic with creating rules, finding and learning about the significance of items and landmarks that can be used in the game, and most importantly had fun while doing so. Volunteers even took personal time to go out into Chinatown to help promote and advertise the event. Planning this event was a good experience for the volunteers because it gave them a chance to work on their leadership skills, self-confidence, creativity and learn more about the history and culture in Chinatown.
The winning teams were:
First Place - Sleep Deprived
Second Place -JELJELJELJELLYFISH
Third Place - "team"
- Written by Edward Fong
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Summer 2011 CORE Activities
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Over the past four weeks, our volunteers have facilitated, and executed three projects on their own.
One of the events they organized from scratch was the Unraveling Chinatown Scavenger Hunt. It was hosted at Sara D. Roosevelt Park on August 7th, 2011, and attracted more than 80 teenagers across the city.
The second project was making a short video clip depicting how CPC changes a youth's life as she dedicates her time to the volunteer core. This heartening video clip can be viewed on TheCPCFilms Youtube account. The VIP is still looking for sponsors of the video. For more information on how to become a video sponsor please contact Christina Wong (cwong3@cpc-nyc.org).
Last but not least, the volunteers also built partnerships among different commercial shops around Chinatown. They handmade eleven appealing donations boxes out of plain cardboard and were able to place those boxes in popular and donation-welcoming shops for more than two weeks. Thank you to Mee Cafe, Yaya Tea Garden, East Broadway Mall, Everything Frosted and various CPC program locations for letting us leave donation boxes in their stores and program sites.
Without a doubt, our summer volunteers followed CPC's motto, "Make something out of nothing. And make more from less". - Written by Wei Wang
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