Held by the Association of Northern California Chinese Schools(ANCCS) on November 21, 2021, awardees and their parents attended the Presidential Volunteer Service Award(PVSA) ceremony. This year, there were twelve gold awardees, seven silver awardees, and seven bronze awardees.
ANCCS 40th President Guanting Shi opened up the award ceremony by informing attendees that even though there were only three people who were given the gold PVSA award, the number of gold awardees this year had jumped to twelve.
ANCCS President Celine Lee gave a welcoming speech, highlighting the efforts of the awardees in the past year to earn the prestigious award. She hopes that more people will apply for the award through ANCCS in future years, since not only is earning the award good for college applications, but also beneficial in building character.
VIPs in attendance included Principal Jane Chen of Mandarin Language and Culture Center(MLCC), Principal Leo Fu of Berryessa Chinese School(BCS), JAACUC President Baokang Liu, ANCCS President Celine Lee, ANCCS Vice President Lisa Wang, and ANCCS 40th President Guangting Shi.
Culture Center of Taipei Economic and Culture Office in San Francisco(Milpitas) Director Roy Yen and Deputy Director Maggie Hsu were present and officiated the award ceremony. Director Yen told attendees that society works better when people give up their personal time to volunteer since one can pick up many important life skills through the experience.
Audrey Wang, a sophomore at Mission San Jose High School(MSJHS) was given the gold award for the teen division for the third year in a row. She spent a lot of time leading a team of thirty-five high schoolers in the Fast Fluency International Tutoring program(sponsored by the Wang and Wu Foundation), creating curriculum and designing tools that the team would use. As a teacher's assistant at MLCC, she helped assist in the learning journeys of many non-mandarin-speaking students. Audrey also volunteered precious free time at MSJHS's Best Buddies program to help special needs students.
Nicholas Wang, a senior at Independence High School, who is a silver awardee in the young adult division, spent over one-hundred seventy hours volunteering during his junior year. He was the SITA President at BCS, where he helped teachers and was a teacher's assistant. In addition, he participated in the Fast Fluency International Tutoring Program to teach Taiwanese students English. He enjoyed volunteering at the Second Harvest food bank as well.
The official PVSA qualifications state that teens ranging from age eleven to fifteen need to volunteer for at least one hundred hours to achieve a gold level PVSA award for their division. Young adults ranging from age fifteen to twenty-five must provide proof of at least two hundred and fifty service hours during the span of the year to qualify for the gold level PVSA award for that division.
It was much harder for students to earn service hours this past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so it is truly commendable that so many students from the San Francisco Bay Area were able to earn enough service hours to meet the requirements.
