Asian American Lead

PAST NEWS

Annual Dinner 2008

Clean-Up Day

Congratulations to the Class of 2007!

AALEAD Featured in the 2006-2007 Spirit of Giving Guide!

Our Cake Auction Featuring Food Network Star Warren Brown was a big success!

News Release: HHS Awards $58 Million through Compassion Capital Fund, including $50,000 to AALEAD.

Press Release: Invisible Americans - the Hidden Plight of Asian Americans in Poverty

Annual Dinner

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Clean-Up Day

June 16, 2007 – 1323 Girard Street was busy Saturday morning as AALEAD staff members and volunteers from The Fund for American Studies (TFAS) joined efforts to clean the AALEAD office basement. The clean-up was an effort to create more activity, office, and storage space for the organization.

Hung Do, Director of Finance, coordinated and directed the clean-up by managing all volunteers and purchasing office supplies for a more space efficient use of the basement. Years of program materials and documents stacked along the wall had to be sorted, sifted, and moved. TFAS volunteers and AALEAD staff did more than clean the basement by also trimming and tidying the front and back lawns of the building. At the end of the day, AALEAD’s basement is clean and manageable. Although there is more work to be done, AALEAD was grateful to have such supportive TFAS volunteers and staff that took up this task on a valuable weekend. The clean-up could not have been possible without the volunteers and AALEAD looks forward to collaborating with TFAS in future events.

TFAS is an organization that has been educating young leaders on the values of freedom, democracy and free-market economies since 1967. Nine institutes around the world bring college students together for educational programs engaging them in a rigorous examination of economic concepts, political systems and moral philosophy. Our goal is to prepare young people for honorable leadership by educating them in the theory, practice and benefits of a free society.

Please visit www.tfas.org for more information.

Congratulations to the Class of 2007

Congratulations to the Class of 2007!!! AALEAD seniors Ahn Le, Lin Chen, Sesen Gidey, and Minh Phan have won full college scholarships!

Asian American Leadership, Empowerment and Development for Youth and Families (AALEAD) is proud to announce that with the support of our Secondary School Program (SSP), four outstanding high school seniors; Anh Le, Lin Chen, Sesen Gidey, and Minh Phan, have won full scholarships to attend college! Coming from various parts of the globe, each of these seniors has had a very unique experience with AALEAD.

Anh and Lin emigrated from their homelands, Vietnam and China, seven years ago. At first glance, the two appear to have nothing in common. They come from different countries, attended different high schools, and have different interests. AALEAD’s SSP, however, has brought them together in many ways. Both have benefited from our ESL and SAT/College preparation courses. Anh’s SAT score improved a staggering 300 points, and Lin’s confidence in her English speaking abilities has sky rocketed, enabling her to become an active participant in class. “Without AALEAD,” says Lin, “I would not participate in extra-curricular activities or gain leadership experiences…It has made my high school life so much easier”. Lin is also glad that AALEAD’s Elementary and Family Strengthening Programs are here to support her entire family. “Since I will be attending college…and since my parents only know a limited amount of English, the only way my siblings can get homework help is through ASAE (the Elementary program).”

For Anh, AALEAD’s one-on-one tutoring and Leadership and Resiliency Group has made an incredible difference. “The friends I made at AALEAD allowed me to share my feelings,” he says, “and because of the diversity at AALEAD, I am now very interested in learning Chinese”. His favorite part about AALEAD is the friendly environment and staff who are “very helpful and sincere”.

Benefiting from AALEAD’s programs is not all these bright young students have in common. The two overcame stage fright together as co-hosts for AALEAD’s Annual Dinner in front of an audience of 500 last February. With the support AALEAD’s nomination, Anh and Lin have also won the POSSE Foundation’s full tuition scholarship to attend Sewanee: The University of the South next fall. Anh plans to become a doctor, and Lin aspires to become a pediatric nurse.

Sesen Gidey, a first generation Eritrean and D.C. native, won not one but two full tuition scholarships from the POSSE Foundation and George Washington University, where she will attend next fall. Ten years from now she imagines herself as a doctor working with a non-profit agency to help those who are disadvantaged. “No matter what happens”, she says, “I will never forget how hard AALEAD worked to find my college calculus tutor- it was so hard because no one wanted to tutor such a hard math class!” Sesen also really appreciates the warm atmosphere at AALEAD. “Even though I’m not Asian, no one ever made me feel alienated.”

Finally, Jack Kent Cooke and Gates Millennium scholarship winner, Minh Phan and his family have been a part of AALEAD for nearly a decade. “AALEAD has always been there,” says Minh. “When we first arrived no one knew English, and we really appreciated their translation services. Then as I grew up, I’ve always loved that AALEAD gives me a chance to do stuff I wouldn’t normally get to do, like horseback riding…If there were no AALEAD, I’d probably just go home and sleep after school”. Minh’s sister, Lan Anh, has also played a special role in AALEAD as youth leader, volunteer and board member. Minh will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) next fall, with a major in Computer Science.

This is what it’s all about for AALEAD- empowering talented low-income refugee and immigrant youth with the tools necessary to attend college and pursue their dreams. Founded in 1998 by Vietnamese refugee Sandy Dang, our overarching goal is to increase the opportunities and ability of low-income Asian American children to move out of poverty and become successful, self-sufficient adults through education, leadership development and community building. AALEAD congratulates these exceptional seniors, and is glad to have made a positive impact on their lives. To learn more about AALEAD’s programs and opportunities in the District of Columbia and Montgomery County, Maryland, please view our website at www.aalead.org or call us at 202-884-0322.

AALEAD is Featured in the 2006-2007 Spirit of Giving Guide!

Each year, the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, through its Spirit of Giving Guide, focuses on a critical issue facing residents in the metropolitan Washington region and highlights smaller nonprofit organizations that are doing exemplary work to address the issue. This year’s Spirit of Giving Guide examines ways of improving the academic achievement and social development of middle school youth. It features 15 nonprofit programs that are opening doors of opportunity for young people across the DC region.

We are proud to announce that AALEAD has been selected as one of the nonprofits.

The full article can be view at this link.

Our Cake Auction Featuring Food Network Star Warren Brown was a big success!

Pictures from the Cake Auction are also available for you to see.

News Release: HHS Awards $58 Million through Compassion Capital Fund, including $50,000 to AALEAD.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced awards totaling $58,025,562 through the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF). The awards, to 420 faith-based and community organizations, are designed to help grass-roots faith-based and community organizations enhance their ability to provide a wide range of social services for those in need. Those services include aid for homeless persons, at-risk youth and rural communities and initiatives to empower youth and promote healthy marriage.

“These awards are central to President Bush’s agenda of compassion toward those in need,” said HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt. “By partnering with faith-based and community organizations, the Bush Administration is strengthening social services for millions of citizens.”

The awards consist of four sets of grants. The first involves the CCF Demonstration Program and totals $5 million for ten organizations. These groups will serve as intermediaries to help build the capacity of smaller faith-based and community organizations.

The second set totals $15,116,280 for 310 faith-based and community organizations under the CCF Targeted Capacity Building Program. The areas of focus for this program include at-risk youth, homeless persons, rural communities and strengthening marriage.

The third set of awards inaugurates the Communities Empowering Youth (CEY) program, a new program created in response to First Lady Laura Bush’s Helping America’s Youth initiative. CEY provides funding to strengthen existing community coalitions working to combat gang activity and youth violence and provide positive alternatives for at-risk youth. Under this new program, $30 million is awarded to 100 organizations to build the capacity of their coalitions, better enabling them to reduce youth violence in communities across the country.

In addition, grants totaling $7,909,282 were awarded to continue currently funded CCF programs.

“These funds provide compassion from the grass-roots up,” said Josephine B. Robinson, director of the Office of Community Services. “The Compassion Capital Fund is making a positive difference for disadvantaged children and families in communities across our nation.”

The Compassion Capital Fund is a cornerstone of President Bush’s faith-based and community initiative, and is designed to help organizations partner with the federal government to strengthen these organizations’ ability to provide social services. Since its inception in 2002, approximately $206 million has been given to more than 4,300 organizations, including sub-awards from intermediary grantees. The primary purpose of CCF is to help faith-based and community organizations increase their effectiveness, enhance their ability to provide social services to serve those most in need, expand their organizations and create collaborations to better serve those in need.

To view a complete list of today’s awards, go to: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/news/press/2006/ccf_fy_2006_data.pdf.

For more information on the Compassion Capital Fund, go to: http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/ccf/.

Press Release

Asian American Leadership, Empowerment and Development for Youth and Families (AALEAD) today released a special report titled Invisible Americans - the Hidden Plight of Asian Americans in Poverty which includes an in-depth look at the growing number of at-risk children in Montgomery County, Maryland

This report calls attention to the growing number of Asian Americans in the United States - representing over 34 ethnicities and more than 300 languages and dialects and living in all ranges of the economic and educational spectrum. More than one third of the immigrants in the Washington, DC metropolitan area are from Asia.

Invisible Americans illustrates that although aggregate census data portrays Asian Americans as educationally advanced and wealthier than your average American; these numbers do not represent Asian American subgroups such as Laotians, Cambodians and Hmong Americans whose per capita income is about � of that of whites and below African Americans, Latinos and American Indians.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, Asian Americans represented 120,000 in 2004 with a projected increase to 170,000 by 2010. Although the demographics are diverse, in the Wheaton-Glenmont-Silver Spring area, the Asian American per capita income was $19,995 in 2000 - just over half the Montgomery County average per capita income. Nearly 5,500 Asian Americans in Montgomery County live in poverty with very few language- and culturally appropriate services available to provide support to this growing population.

Click here for a copy of Invisible Americans - The Hidden Plight of Asian Americans in Poverty

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