What’s Going On?

The San Francisco’s Asian Peace Officers Association (APOA) Scholarship and Promotional Dinner was held at New Asia Restaurant this year and the banquet was attended by many. The night kicked off with the Pledge of Allegiance and a lion dance performance performed by the SFPD lion dance troupe. Throughout the night the APOA sold raffle tickets to guests with the help of a few pageant contestants from a couple different pageants held here in San Francisco throughout the year.

Raffle tickets were sold for $5 each or $20 for five tickets. Money raised would help in the furthering of the organization and in funding scholarships for students for academic achievement. Other merchandise available for sale and tips from a hosted bar too would go on to help the APOA’s benefit banquet. Some of the prizes for the raffle where a limited edition Jackie Chan doll, expensive bottles of cognac, hotel stays, a brand new phone, gift cards for food or merchandise, and the grand prize was two tickets on Singapore Airlines.

During the banquet various state and local dignitaries came to show their support for the organization and helped in various ways. Keynote speaker for the night was Senator Leland Yee. APOA also wanted to recognize the welcoming of the new Chief of Police George Gascon and to honor the retirement of Chief Heather Fong, which became the very first female chief of police of any metropolitan city in the United States.

Other festivities included the honoring of the promotion to lietenents and sargeants, presentation of scholarship awards, and more raffle drawings.

The evening ended with closing remarks and a VIP After Party.

Pictures of the APOA Dinner can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Feel free to leave comments below for the pictures and the posting.

So I took another trip to the San Francisco Food Bank this year and I can say that it is not dull. Every time that I’ve been at the food bank there is always something different to do, never have I done the same thing twice. As stated in a previous post which can be read here, the SF Food Bank is located in Potrero Hill. The food bank is housed inside of a very nice contemporary warehouse where canned, dry food, fresh produce, and frozen foods are stored. According to the food bank about 133,000 people are fed through various programs throughout the city. Mostly funded through contributions from corporations, the food bank also takes public and private donations as well.

On this trip to the food bank, I volunteered with a couple of my friends who were with The Children’s Place. I had volunteered with them before on my last visit to the bank. The tasks that we were asked to do on this visit were to separate out bad tomatoes from the good tomatoes. Some of the bad tomatoes were rotten, bruised, molded, and pierced. A majority of the tomatoes were not ripe yet and almost resembled apples in terms of color and firmness. Some tomatoes were already ripe and ready to eat. While sorting through the tomatoes we then boxed up the good tomatoes and stack them on a pallet.

Once all of the volunteers finished seperating and packaging the tomatoes, we moved onto a different room to package out oatmeal. In another room we weighed out oatmeal in one pound bags and then sealed and labeled the bags. We shipped out 24 bags to one box and stacked them too onto a pallet. As everything was being accomplished in a timely manner, the time for volunteers to end all tasks eventually came to an end. As volunteers worked, the time passed very quickly through conversations and listening to music. Some groups wanted to keep on working. To some volunteers, including myself, there seems to be some sort of accomplishment when trying to compete with each other to see who can package out the most items. In some way it is like a game and whoever achieves more wins. In the end we are all winners, but I think if there was no set time to leave a few would continue to stay and work.

If you are interested in helping the food bank, there are many opportunities that you can be a part of. Volunteer days are seven days a week during the daytime and evenings are Tuesday through Thursday only. Specific times to volunteer is located on their web-page. Bring a group if you can, they can accommodate groups of up to 80 people. If you cannot bring a group, you can come individually as well. Being able to volunteer at the San Francisco Food Bank is just a wonderful experience and I encourage you all to take part in giving back to the community and help and serve those that need us.

The Asian Women’s Resource Center’s (AWRC) Gum Moon Women’s Residence celebrates their 25th anniversary. The annual benefit dinner was hosted by the Far East Cafe. The AWRC is a ministry of the Methodist Church and was created to meet the needs of women and children providing skills, empowerment, and building up of the self during transitions in their lives.

The benefit dinner is held every year to raise funds for the Center. Contributions through purchasing tables, live auctions, silent auctions, raffle tickets, and purchasing merchandise throughout the dinner help in reaching the needs to funding the organization.

The night consisted of a couple performances by local groups (singing, skits, cultural dances), an awards ceremony with dignitaries and sponsors, a fashion show by Orange Caterpillar (Peter Lou) and Max Nugas (represented by Doris Him Grover), and all the fundraising activities.

For more information on the Gum Moon Women’s Residence a part of the Asian Women’s Resource Center click here.

Click on the picture link above to view pictures of the AWRC’s Annual Benefit Dinner.

Edgewood Center for Children and Families is a non-profit organization that seeks assistance for kids that struggle through social, mental, abuse, neglect or family problems.

Several of my friends wanted to meet and help out the children of Edgewood. We all agreed to schedule a date where we could all commit to helping the needs of this organization. What we signed up for was fun, but not only that it was rewarding.

This is my second time at Edgewood and the program that we were involved with is called Breakfast Club. The volunteer session with Edgewood is a two and a half hour time commitment. The breakfast session is on a Saturday mornings from 8:30-11am. Volunteers for Breakfast Club are there to cook for the kids. There are three cottages and groups are divided up into teams of four. If there happens to be no volunteers the staff there would have to prepare the meal for the children. Thankfully, most of their Saturdays are booked in advanced and volunteer groups are more than welcomed to serving the children through this program or other various programs (dinner club, gardening club, fundraising events, etc).

I love cooking so this was on my number one things to do for the community. It’s been probably a few years since the last time I was here, but being back brought back so many fun memories. The memories were both of being able to cook alongside my friends and being able to cook for the kids that seem so happy to see new people. Some are quiet and some are very talkative, but in the end all the kids really want is love. I’m glad that I was able to be a part of it and I really do hope to book another session with them.

If you would like to find out more information, please visit their website at http://www.edgewood.org

Tonight, I had the opportunity to help out with some volunteers at the San Francisco Food Bank.  Located in Potrero Hill, the food bank is housed inside of a very nice contemporary warehouse where canned, dry food, fresh produce, and frozen foods are stored. According to the food bank about 133,000 people are fed through various programs throughout the city. Mostly funded through contributions from corporations, the food bank also takes public and private donations as well.

Having been a volunteer before at the food bank, I was eager to see what type of work the full-time employees had for us to do this time around. The last time I was here I remember having to sift through boxes and boxes of peaches. Peaches were donated to the food bank and the volunteer’s job was to screen the peaches and make sure that the bruised, moldy, and often deformed fruit get tossed away, while the good peaches got repacked into “good to eat” boxes.

This time around we were given instruction on packaging Chinese pasta. The task at hand was to open up bulk boxes of pasta and individually package 1lb sealed bags and label them. Each workstation had a limit of seven people. What worked most efficiently was to have two people package the pasta, two people to weigh the pasta and audit if more or less pasta needed to be added or taken away from the bags, two people to help seal the bags, and one person to label and repack the bags into a box of 30 packages.

Given two hours as a whole, we were able to get a pallet packed and loaded and ready to be shipped. According to the food bank employees we had packed 2,250lbs of pasta, which was also equivalent to 11 tons+, but according to my math from high school one ton = 2,000 lbs. However, being a geek that I am, I just now am looking up on google what the measure equivalent is: 2,000lbs = one short ton; 2,240lbs = one long ton. No matter how I look at it, I still don’t know how the employee came up with 11 tons, it didn’t make sense. Nonetheless, we accomplished a task and it was a lot of fun. I felt like a robot throughout the whole experience, but I had a sense of pride that I was able to help as much as I could in helping provide thousands of people with food that can be consumed in hard economic times.

If you are interested in helping the food bank, there are many opportunities that you can be a part of. Volunteer days are seven days a week during the daytime and evenings are Tuesday through Thursday only. Specific times to volunteer is located on their web-page. Bring a group if you can, they can accommodate groups of up to 80 people. If you cannot bring a group, you can come individually as well. Being able to volunteer at the San Francisco Food Bank is just a wonderful experience and I encourage you all to take part in giving back to the community and help and serve those that need us.

Last night a group of my friends decided to go crabbing. It was a cold night, but it was a very beauitful night. The moon was full and shining bright.

To begin our adventure we had to bait some nets and snare traps. We used some squid, shrimp, and fish heads for bait. We  then had to put the traps in the water. Some traps were casted in by fishing rods and some traps were lowered in by hand at the side of the dock. No sooner than when we set the traps, the sealions came. They circled the waters like sharks eager and looking for prey. However, in our case the prey had already been killed and all they had to do was just break into the traps and grab the bait out. We were successful in keeping some bait free from being eaten, but in total we had two fish head casualties.

Throughout the night as we waited for the biggest catch, we all gathered around an old Coleman camping stove cooking up hot dogs and cheddar dogs. In addition to the hot dogs, we had some blueberries, grapes, cheese and crackers. As we were eating we checked the nets and fishing lines every 10mins or so. We managed to capture many small crabs, but they were too small to keep.

Overall, the night was long and cold, but in the end we were able to keep one crab. I think the true reward from all of this was not the one crab being caught, but it was the friendship and bonds that we had built up that night. This crab adventure will hopefully not end here, but will continue for years to come.