Written by Christina Chang
Translated by H.B. Qin
Edited by Ida Eva Zielinska
Tzu Chi USA Northwest Region’s Oakland Service Center team held an iCare510 Charity Appreciation Dinner on Sunday, August 4, 2024, at the Golden Peony Tea House in Oakland. The purpose of the dinner was to thank the Oakland community for supporting Tzu Chi’s free vision clinic services for disadvantaged children and to raise funds for the purchase of vision testing equipment. The team launched the fundraising campaign in early June, and it received an overwhelming response. The campaign reached its funding goal by the end of the month while love from people from all walks of life continued to pour in. More than 300 people came to the Appreciation Dinner to cheer the Tzu Chi Oakland volunteer team on for their long-term dedication and hard work to benefit the community.
Jennifer Thai, head of Tzu Chi Oakland, said the fundraising campaign was named “iCare510” because the phone numbers of the cities and towns in Oakland all begin with “510,” and she hopes to unite the strength of all people in the community to raise money for charitable activities in support of the common good. In particular, Tzu Chi Oakland will use the funds raised to purchase additional optometry equipment to provide underprivileged families with free eye exams, vision tests, and prescription glasses for schoolchildren.
At the same time, through the unity and cooperation of various ethnic groups, Thai and Tzu Chi hope to improve the quality of life and public health in Oakland, which in turn may reduce the increasingly serious social problems facing the city, thereby helping to transform its widely held negative reputation.
Tzu Chi has long been providing underprivileged families in Oakland with care and free medical services, especially for the health of children in disadvantaged families, which will be an important key to future development and positive community feedback.
The Event’s Honored Celebrity Guest Encourages Right Action
The Oakland volunteer team invited a special guest – renowned chef Martin Yan – to participate in the iCare510 Charity Appreciation Dinner event by showcasing vegetarian cuisine. Chef Yan demonstrated how to use everyday fruits and vegetables to make simple and delicious dishes, highlighting the health benefits associated with a plant-based diet. At the same time, Yan encouraged everyone to join the fundraising effort in whatever way they could, saying, “You don’t need everything to be a big deal. Every little thing you do, even if it’s just a small impact, it’s all very meaningful.”
I believe donating to iCare 510 is the right thing to do! And you need to be healthy to have a healthy and happy life.
The event date coincided with the first day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, which is considered auspicious in Chinese culture. Thus, the dinner attendees were joyful as everyone enjoyed the tasty vegetarian meal and Chef Yan’s presentation of culinary skills while displaying their support for a good cause.
During the event, Tzu Chi volunteer Yingli Yang introduced the optometry equipment Tzu Chi Oakland plans to purchase with the funds raised. He also explained how Tzu Chi Fresno’s Vision Mobile Clinic team has benefited schoolchildren in its service region thanks to such equipment. He showed how the equipment can offer an optometric reading in seconds and test the health of a child’s eyes, allowing the vision care team to serve around 100 students per hour. “The main purpose of the eyeglasses fitting and monitoring children’s vision is to let parents know what’s wrong with their children’s eyes,” Yang said.
Coming Together for A Good Cause
Tzu Chi Oakland’s office is located near Chinatown, which is also home to the Vietnamese community of Little Saigon. Tzu Chi volunteers here have interacted with Oakland’s Chinese and Vietnamese communities for a long time, working together and helping each other to improve public health.
Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce President Carl Chan, who Tzu Chi invited to the iCare510 Charity Appreciation Dinner, addressed the guests and said, “Tzu Chi’s work is very important to our community. Every year when we hold the Chinatown Street Fair, Tzu Chi volunteers come to help.” Chan further elaborated that in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinatown community development suffered a significant blow. At that time, Tzu Chi volunteers assisted older residents and organized many activities to help them overcome the difficulties prevalent during the global crisis. “So, on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and the Chinatown community, I would like to thank Tzu Chi for helping us,” Chan stated.
Dr. Jennifer Kim-Anh Tran, Executive Director of the Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, also attended and congratulated Tzu Chi on the fundraiser’s success. “We’ve been looking forward to this Appreciation Dinner for a long time. We understand the importance of working with different organizations in the community to combine our separate perspectives into a bigger and better force,” she shared. Tran added that Tzu Chi, the Vietnamese community, and the Chamber of Commerce have already worked together for five years to encourage underprivileged Asian immigrants to unite into a consensus-based neighborhood community.
We are here to come together to support and assist young schoolchildren to have healthy eyesight. Our community has long lacked the resources for professional services, and Tzu Chi’s vision care programs and resources can reach out directly to the people in the community.
Apart from addresses by special guests and Chef Martin Yan’s cooking presentation, the Appreciation Dinner program also included touching entertainment, with musical and sign language performances.
People Respond to the Goal of Community Wellness
Chien Nguyen is a working representative of TRYBE, an Oakland community-based non-profit organization. After learning about Tzu Chi Oakland’s fundraiser, he immediately proposed to Tzu Chi volunteers that the two organizations should support each other in caring for disadvantaged schoolchildren in the future. One of the main themes of TRYBE is to promote the physical and mental health of young schoolchildren in the community. Moreover, the organization’s office is across the street from Tzu Chi’s Oakland Service Center, and they have had good interactions with each other in the past. “We have always been Tzu Chi fans, so of course we will come to support Tzu Chi’s activities,” Nguyen said.
Tzu Chi is an international organization, and this fundraising program is for vision care for young schoolchildren, and that's a goal that both of our organizations share.
Hanxian Ye has been a member of Tzu Chi for many years and regularly donates money to support its charitable activities. Although over 80, she is still physically fit and works part-time at Oakland City Hall, wanting to go out and make good use of her life rather than staying home all the time. Learning about the fundraiser, Ye responded enthusiastically, donating her January earnings and inviting several friends from the senior living apartments where they reside to join her for a delicious vegetarian meal. “There are people in the senior apartments who don’t know Tzu Chi,” she shared, “so I thought it would be worthwhile to donate my salary and give everyone a chance to get together for a meal and get to know each other.”
Tzu Chi Oakland Service Center’s iCare510 Charity Appreciation Dinner fundraising event to purchase optometry equipment to serve children from underprivileged families was a success with the concerted support of community organizations and the public. The amount of money raised exceeded expectations, doubling the enthusiasm, multiplying the love, and uniting everyone’s goodwill to enhance the guardianship of children’s vision and light up hope for continued improvements in public health and wellbeing in Oakland.
