2009 Annual Report
密西根中華婦女會
Michigan Chinese Women Association
(MCWA)
密西根中華婦女會
Michigan Chinese Women Association
(MCWA)
Website:
Table of Contents
From the President
Organization, Communication & Recognition
Evergreen Luncheon Program
MCWA & Heartland Joint Senior Activity
Cook for Homeless
Educational Seminars and Women’s Activities
International Women’s Day Celebration
Relay for Life
Fundraising & Donation to the Needy
Honor Rolls – MCWA Donor’s List
Financial Statement
Board of Directors
Special Acknowledgement:
- Jyanhwa Jessica Wang (汪建華) - MCWA Webmaster, who devoted endless time and effort on the design and maintenance of our new website.
- Rhona Lee (李榮娜) - MCWA Poster Designer, who showcased her artistic talents in the graphic design of the new MCWA poster (see cover page).
- Contributors to the annual report: Jenny Shu(舒敏君), Jyanhwa Wang((汪建華), Ellen Chung(陳藹倫), and Yee-Ho Chia (賈儀和).
From the President
Michigan Chinese Women Association (MCWA)was founded in 1990 and its primary mission has always been community services. The 2008/2009 Board had the vision to re-focus on the“volunteerism” spiritsand to promoteactivities so that MCWA willbe recognizedfor contributions towards community services bythe mainstream Americans.
Last year, one of our goals was tobetter serve MCWA members. To accomplish that, we adopted the 21st century communication tools: E-mail and website. We wereable to reconnect with old members, and also to recruit newmembers. We sent out activity announcements and “Quarterly Newsletter” to our 210 membersvia e-mails, and also posted them on our website:
MCWA continued to hostEvergreen senior luncheonsthat we have been doing for many years, and the participants were mainly Chinese Americans. In addition, we sponsored ajoint senior activity with the Heartland Health Care Center in Troy, Michigan to servethe mainstream Americans.
With economic downturn, thenumber of homeless people increased significantly last year. The timing was right for MCWA new initiative of “Cook for Homeless”, whichoffered superb opportunities to help our American community with Chinese heritage of generosity and caring.
We have enhanced Women’s Seminars/Activities based onmembers’ inputs.We wereparticularly encouraged that “Cooking Demo & Afternoon Tea”event received manypositive feedbacks.
In March, ten Asianwomen’sorganizations including MCWA co-sponsored the International Women’s Dayevent. We were excited about the opportunity to collaborate with multi-ethnic groups and to participate in cultural activity. In May, MCWA co-sponsored the American Cancer Society (ACS)’s Relay for Life event in Troy. We received strong supports from MCWA members and Chinese community on making donations and also on performing volunteer tasks.
In September, MCWA hosted the First Shirley Chang Memorial Lecture at the19thMichigan Night and annual meeting event. We would like to acknowledge the funding support from the Chang Foundation.
MCWA conductedfundraising through members, friends, foundations, and business community. This allowed us to support our programs/activities, and to makecharitable donations to the needyfamilies and ACS. In addition, we organized adonation drive for the victims of Taiwan 88 Flood.
Last, but not least, MCWAwasextremely lucky to have a team of “Talented and Dedicated Board Members”last year. We were able to accomplish many of the team goals through efficient and effective team work.
Yee-Ho Chia
MCWA President, 2008/2009
Organization, Communication & Recognition
Organization:Last year, MCWA started to use e-mail as the main communication tool. We were able to reconnect with old members, and also to recruit new members. We had 210members on our e-mail distribution list. A 2009 MCWA membership directory has been published and distributed to our members at the Michigan Night event.
Communication: E-mails allowed us to conduct efficient and effective e-voting among Board members so that the Board can make quick decisions. In addition, we also conduct e-voting among MCWA members for the amendment of the Bylaws and the election of new Board members.
A few members requested us to explore effective way of makingannouncements of MCWA activities. In the past, MCWA typically relied on the Michigan News, published weekly in Chinese, to announce new activities. Last year, MCWAimplemented a complementary service of routinely sending out activity announcements to members by e-mails. We also initiated a new service-“Quarterly Newsletter” which allowed members to pre-view activities in the coming three months.
In addition to e-mails, website was viewed as a necessary communication tool. The Board quickly voted to add a new website and selected the name: . Jyanhwa Wang, the MCWA Treasurer, took on additional responsibility to be our webmaster. She devoted endless time and efforts to design and maintain our website. To ensure the continuity of the website, training of future volunteers to help maintain the website has already been planned.
Our website included MCWA missions, history, Board members, news, photo gallery, contact us, newsletter (quarterly), announcement, job opportunities, etc.
Announcement: MCWA posted many different announcement releases for members including arts exhibits, various dance classes, etc. In addition, we also posted activities sponsored by other Chinese organizations including ACA, MCAPA, MiTai, etc.
Job Opportunities: In this economic downturn time, some MCWA members or their family members were unfortunately unemployed. MCWA offers free posting of job opportunities. Recently Oakland University has approached MCWA to get their job openings posted at our website. We have sent out e-mails to our members and encouraged them to check the MCWA website regularly.
Recognition: Last year, MCWA Board started an open nomination process for the community services award and model mothers. Award committee, consisted of Sue Sung, Ellen Chung and Yee-Ho Chia, designed application forms, and established eligibility criteria. It was a milestone thatMCWA decided to empower our members to nominate award candidates.
Tsai-Ling Chou周綵玲received the 2009 IWD community service award in March. Chih-Peng Chen陳芷芃, Ann Chen陳靜安, and Xue Meng Wang王學孟have been honored as the 2009 model mothers on May 9. Ning Ling Fang房寧齡was selected to receive the 2009 MCWA community service award in September.
Evergreen Luncheon Program
The Evergreen seniorlunch program was initiated with the purpose to mainly serve Chinese American senior citizens. MCWA has hosted the Evergreen lunch event for nearly fifteen years and this was one of the early community service programs
The current leaders for the Evergreen senior group wereLuqian Tien,President, and Jinwen Chen, VP. Without their help, MCWA would not be able to run the luncheon program effectively. Jinwen always contacted their members and collectedthe head count for each gathering. Luqian planned the Evergreen performance program. Evergreen members showcased their talents through various dance, singing and musical instruments performances. In addition, they designed and made all their own beautiful costumes.
Last year, MCWA sponsored six luncheons which included October event, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, joint March event at the Heartland, Mother’s Day celebration, and June picnic (at the Nelson Park, Sterling Heights). MCWA Board members were actively involved in planning these events and helped with coordinatingMCWA performance programs. In addition, they took turns to participate in the event to serve the seniors.
MCWA purchased restaurant-made food, in addition to fruits and cake, for senior luncheons. We enjoyed and appreciatedthe Mongolian Buffet Restaurant’s delicious Chinese food at reasonable prices.
Wewere delighted that a wide range of MCWA performance programswere presented to our seniors. ACA dance group performed “Taiwan Three-Step” dance. “The Play” music group sang campus folk songs, and popular songs at Thanksgiving event. Piano Teacher Nai-Wen Wang and her ten students gave a music recital for the seniors at Christmas event. Tzu Chi Foundation volunteers and MCWA Board members jointly showed the “sign language” demonstration. Chi-Kuan Kao performed the Chen Style Taichi 48 forms. Ching Hsieh gave a photo show on “Alaska”. MCWA Board sang Mother’s Day songs accompanied by Chinese music instruments. Merry Wu led organized games and dances at the June picnic.
When these seniors came to the Evergreen event every one to two months, they arrived with cheerful spirits. They enjoyeddeliciousfood and wonderful performances. More importantly, they had a chance to sit and chat with old friends, and enjoyed each other’s accompany. When they were about to leave, they exchanged words that they will meet again in the next gathering. Their broad smiles and happy faces made us feel that this was such a worthwhile event that MCWA shouldcontinue to support.
One of the changes we implemented last year was to broadenseveral Evergreen luncheons tomulti-purpose events. The Thanksgiving and Mother’s Day celebrations and June Picnic event were held as joint MCWA/ Evergreen activitiesto encourage members of both groupsto mingle with each other.
June potluck family picnic appeared to be the highlight oflast year’sEvergreen events. The picnic was well attended by both MCWA and Evergreen members. People brought their favorite dishes- many varieties- and MCWA provided barbequed meat. We were lucky to have the combination of comfortable weather,delicious food, good companies and nice chat. We were particularly impressed bymany Evergreen members actively participatingin the organized games, singing and dances. Feedbacks from several participants showed that they had a wonderful time and really enjoy the get-together.
Story:Somesenior performers loved to see their performance pictures, and we did not have a good mechanism to do it in the past. After we initiated the website, we routinely uploaded event pictures to the photo gallery. This allowed them to view their performance photos, to select the ones they liked, and then to make copies themselves. We were very happy to receive their thank you notes by e-mails.
MCWA & Heartland Joint SeniorActivity
Traditionally the Evergreen luncheon program was planned to serve Chinese American seniors. The 2008/2009 Board decided to expand the activity to include mainstream American seniors as our program beneficiaries. In addition to achieving the community service goal, we also planned to take this opportunity to introduce Chinese culture through the performances.
Through initial arrangement by Amy Tung, we were able to sponsor the April Evergreen luncheon event at the Heartland Health Care Center in Troy, Michigan. We were delighted to see many residents on wheel chairs came tojoinus and the Heartland’s second floor activity room was full of people. As a result, some of MCWA performer’s family members had to stand outside of the room.
For the special audience, we designed the Chinese cultural program which consisted of Chinese Yoyo, Chinese musical instrument performance of Guzheng, and Yuanji dance (Tai-chi style dance). We received very positive feedback from the Heartland co-organizer, and we were planning to continue this collaboration next year.
Story: Originally, we were planning to use a home-made cake as the birthday cake for the April event. However, we were informed thatHeartland residents have not had achance to enjoy real birthday cakesrecently because pies or other desserts were often used as substitutes for cakes in many birthday celebrations. Therefore, MCWA decided to order a “real” fancy birthday cake with frosting and pretty decorations because we wanted Heartland’s birthday boys and girls knew that they were very unique and special to us. We noticed one of the birthday boys on the wheel chair really enjoyed his birthday cake. Happy faces of the Heartland participants were the best reward that we could get.
Cook for Homeless
Community Service has been the primarymissionof MCWA for years. The Evergreen senior lunch program, one of the MCWA community activities, has been conducted to mainly serve Chinese Americans. We think that was "Small Love" for our own people. We would like to extend our community service spirits to help mainstream Americans as well. In other words, we would like to offer "Big Love" to our society. For this reason, MCWA was embracing a new initiative - "Cook for Homeless"last year.
We sponsored three "Cook for Homeless" eventsat the Grace Centers of Hope in Pontiac, Michigan. The tasks included purchase of raw materials, cook Chinese food (typically one appetizer, four main dishes and a dessert) on site and serve the Sunday dinner to homeless people. Our activity was coordinated by Lih-Yun Hsieh and Yee-Ho Chia.
This program received very strong support fromMCWA members since many people signed up via e-mails. We even had to send regrets to members who signed up late. The total number of participants ranged from 22 to 31 for each event.
Weencouraged students, in addition to adults, to serve communities and tried to offer them opportunity to participate in the “cook for homes” events. We were proud to report thata total of 22 students participated in this program and some of them actually helped out two to three times. Eachjunior/high school student volunteer received a“certificate of community service” from MCWA. Most student volunteers came from the SMCS. We would like to express special thanks to Hui-Fong Liu, a SMCS teacher, who made efforts to bring her students to this activity. In addition, we also received support ofcollege/ graduate student volunteers from the Lawrence Technological University (LTU), and they were recruited by Rhona Lee.
MCWA planned a budget$180 for each “Cook for Homeless” event targeting to feed 100 people. We were happy to receive several donations made specifically to support this program.
This was the single program that we received numerous positive feedbacks. Perhaps, this should NOT be a surprise since MCWA members who love to help communities were always looking for opportunities to serve.
Story:We would like to share a touching story fromone donor. One MCWA member’s colleague heard about this program, and donated $50 in memory of his deceased father. He later wrote a note about this event and hung the note on his family Christmas tree in 2008 as a special tribute.
Educational Seminars and Women’s Activities
The purpose of educational seminars was to promoteMCWA members’ self-improvement and self-enrichment. We sponsored a total of four events last year. The first one was “Cooking Demonstration” led by Lin Chiungyu Yu, Sophia Wu and Tsai-Ling Chou. We also hosted three seminars on “Dress Etiquette”, “Chinese Medicine” and “Introduction to Jade” led by Tsai-Ling Chou, Dr. Chindah Kwan, and Mavis Kuo respectively. In addition, MCWA hosted a Chinese New Year family party so that members with young kids could join us. This was also held to promote the cultural activity on the Chinese New Year celebration.
Cooking demonstration has always been one of the favorite MCWA programs. Last year, participants had chance to learn the method of making several delicious snacks using microwave in the cooking demo event. They also learned some basic tips of tea brewing, and triedout a couple varieties of tea. In addition, all participants had chance to taste all snacks that presenters pre-made at home. It was a very enjoyable and relaxed afternoon.
Three different seminar topics drew attentions of MCWA members and friends. “Dress Etiquette” was focused on the proper dressing for special occasions. Some members proposed MCWA to offer a similar one on theproper dressing for career women in the future. In the “Chinese Medicine” seminar,promotion of women’s health was discussed from the Chinese medicine perspective. Some of the commonly used herbs were suggested, and several healthy exercises were taught. “Introduction of Jade” seminar was extremely well attended since jade has been a favorite jewelry of Chinese, and everyone was interested to learn more about it.
In the Chinese New Year event, kids enjoyed the delicious New Year rice cakes with three different fillings. They also had chance to watch children’s cultural performance (Chinese Yo-Yo, Pipa & Hulusi performance). The highlight was probably that each of them received a red envelop containing a new one-dollar coin and a raffle ticket.
Most adult participants enjoyed group singing of popular songs, and line dances.We observed participants of different ages representing three generations all happily danced the line dance together. That created such a memorable image. It appeared attendees enjoyed good food and had lots of fun. We received several feedbacks that the model of group celebration of the Chinese New Year should continue since it offered participants a strong feeling of cultural and festival mood of celebration.
Story:The weather was very bad in the evening of the Chinese New Year event. Therefore, even though eighty-three people signed up, only fifty-six came to the event. We were really moved that Ching Wang, one of the performers, managed to attend it that day. He left his home in Saginaw early, drovea couple of hours in the snow, and still arrived in Madison Heights with enough time to set up his equipment. We enjoyed his wonderful singing performance that evening. In addition,we were grateful that he made a generous $100 cash donation as soon as he learned that MCWA was relying on donations to support all programs/activities.