04.13.2010 – This article was written by Guest Blogger Mai Nguyen. Mai is the current VSA President at UC Santa Cruz. Through her leadership, UCSC continues to be an amazing organization, dedicated to improving society and promoting Vietnamese heritage and culture.
Past the alluring blue waves and mysterious redwood trees, University of Santa Cruz VSA beats strong once again, preparing for another anticipated annual charity show. With three tremendously successful charity shows, our VSA’s numbers are growing rapidly and more passionately than ever before. Last year, we celebrated UCSC VSA’s 3rd Annual Cultural Charity Show, “Tracing Our Footsteps,” where we commemorated our family’s past experiences and embraced our culture with its strength, courage, and passion. The majority of our sales went directly to Friends of Hue, a non-profit organization providing assistance to impoverished people and victims of natural disasters in Thua Thien Hue province of Central Vietnam.
This year UCSC VSA proudly introduces our 4th Annual Cultural Charity Show: “The Seven Wonders of Vietnam.” Already being a significantly dynamic organization with different ethnicities, we want others to experience and appreciate the Vietnamese culture with an array of dances, cuisines, songs, stories, and other performances.
UCSC VSA is non-profit organization dedicated to helping others. As such, we devote a significant amount of our time and resources to the Blind Vietnamese Children Foundation (BVCF). By supporting improvements in health, education, career development programs, we hope that our efforts will enhance the quality of life of visually-impaired children residing in Vietnam. Mark Pham, devoted VSA member, alongside other fellow VSA members visited BVCF in San Francisco. In his words:
“I was really surprised with BVCF because not only do they aim to help the blind in Vietnam, but they also reach out to other rural families that need help. They build wells in rural villages to have access to clean water. Their current poor quality inflicts diseases and illnesses, some which causes blindness. It only takes $300 to build a well, so VSA aims to raise enough money to build several wells to villages that need clean water. BVCF is also part of a church, and they go on many missions to southern areas of Vietnam; currently, because of the several restrictions, the north is quite inaccessible. I had such a positive reaction when I became acquainted with the foundation. They are really enthusiastic, well organized, have great leadership, communication, and passion. It’s inspiring to know that they cater to everyone and are willing to help out those in Vietnam that do not have a voice.”
Although UCSC VSA is a small and relatively new organization, we have a strong heart and an exuberant passion to help others. Please join us on Saturday, April 17, 2010 to unveil our 4th annual charity show “The Seven Wonders of Vietnam!”
Location: Porter Dining Hall @ UCSC
Day: Saturday, April 17, 2009
Time: 7:00 p.m.- 9:00 p.m. (Doors open at 6:00 p.m.)
Tickets: $8 Presale Tickets; $12 at the door
Attire: Dress to Impress, but not necessary 😉
Contact: (For direct contact to order tickets please email vsa.ucsc@gmail.com, and we will get to you as quickly as possible).
To check out our fliers and other information about UCSC VSA please visit:
http://ucscvsa.weebly.com/index.html
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=2213326423
UCSC VSA would like to make this event accessible to people with disabilities. If you need accommodations, please contact SOAR at 831.459.2934.
This sounds like such an incredible show. I wish I could attend! Will you be filming it?