Unfinished Business
After the graduation, I came back to VNCOC for a few more days and helped with miscellaneous tasks, like making labels for the kitchen and organizing the office. I also interviewed one of the seniors (in Vietnamese) for our upcoming newsletter. The lady was 82 years old and has been coming to VNCOC everyday for the past 20 years! I felt like this was a good way to end my time working at VNCOC. By researching and applying for grants that would fund programs at our four facilities, I was able to serve my community in a non-direct but significant way. In terms of direct services, I got to help serve lunch to our seniors daily and paint a mural to beautify our senior activities room. In addition, I also had the opportunity to assist jobseekers with creating resumés and teach some seniors basic computer skills. I definitely got to experience the reality of working at a non-profit organization, and the knowledge that I have gained by working at VNCOC are priceless. I will definitely miss interacting with the seniors and the staff, and I could not have asked for a cooler supervisor!
Week 8
I started off this week by finally visiting the OneOC Resource Center. I was able to search and read through hundreds of grants using their database. I compiled a list of over a hundred grants that VNCOC fit the criteria for. Because I made a mistake on Excel and saved the file before realizing, my spreadsheet got all messed up. I couldn’t undo and so I had a mini panic attack…all my hard work was gone! Luckily some of the grant info was in the emails that I sent to myself, so I was able to work off of that and restore the spreadsheet. As usual, I also helped out with serving lunch to our seniors when extra help was needed.
The LEAP graduation was a bittersweet experience for me. It was nice to have my parents and supervisor come and support me, and I am proud of myself for surviving the eight weeks. At the same time, I didn’t get a sense of closure because I knew I would be coming back to my CBO to work for a few more days, so my internship is technically “done” but not really haha. When I got home, instead of feeling relieved like I thought I would be, I actually felt pretty sad. It started to hit me that I would not be coming back to the LEAP office every Friday with the other interns. We already agreed to have a reunion during winter break, so it’s never a “goodbye” just a “see you later.” Although this internship came at a bad time for me personally, I will forever be thankful for all the opportunities, knowledge, and experiences. If I could do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat (but approach it differently).
Week 7
So this week I’m feeling a little bit better. I finished up the Pacific Life grant and waiting for my supervisor and CEO to look over it before submitting. I also spent a lot of time creating a spreadsheet and researching different types of grants funded by different sources (government, corporations, private foundations) that VNCOC has already applied for or can apply for in the future. I was supposed to visit the OneOC resource center, which has the appropriate search tools that would make looking up grants a lot easier, a few weeks back but it got delayed because I haven’t been able to take my mom’s car to work like how I originally planned (but that’s a whole other story)….SO my supervisor will drive me there next week.
Week 6
I’ve been really low on energy lately. I managed to get to work on Monday but came down with a nasty fever (and the heat didn’t help), so I had to stay home on Tuesday and Wednesday. Now I have four days total to make up. By this week, work has been pretty routine: working on the Pacific Life grant (which includes of mostly looking through old grants, copying and pasting, and tweeking the language and information to make them relevant) and helping in the kitchen. Oh, I forgot to add that on Monday, I got to assist someone with creating a resume in order to apply for a job. It was quite an interesting experience assisting someone who has been out of college for a year and has never had any work experience or participated in any extracurricular activities during high school or college. In this type of situation, there is only so much that can be put in the resume. This is definitely an issue that has got me to think about what VNCOC can do in terms of workforce development.
Week 5
So to make up for one of my missed days, this past Saturday I went to VNCOC’s new clinic location to help with moving equipment from the old to the new site. I didn’t do any heavy lifting of course haha but I got to direct the movers of where to place things. There were boxes and boxes of paper-based medical records, which was quite a hassle to organize. By witnessing and experiencing this, I was able to see for myself why it is crucial to convert to an electronic system. Taken directly from the grant that I am working on: “As a result of this conversion, VNCOC anticipates a 30 percent increase in patient visits, from 16,617 visits annually, to approximately 21,600 visits. EHR conversion is an important step toward improving patient care by making provider operations and patient care more efficient, personalized, accessible, and more easily shared among appropriate providers.” During the week, I continued working on the EHR conversion grant and helping in the kitchen.
LEAP’s 23rd Annual Leadership Awards Dinner on Thursday and Board Luncheon on Friday were incredible experiences. I was able to meet and network with so many influential people. I got invited to sit at the APIASF table and volunteered to hold the award when APIASF was honored with the Community Award. While I was concentrating on not dropping the glass award and smiling for the camera, Neil Horikoshi, the President and Executive Director of APIASF, called my name and asked me to step forward on stage to be recognized as a Gates Millennium/APIASF Scholar; I did not see that coming at all and was totally caught off guard! I will forever be grateful for this generous scholarship; it has opened up so many doors for me; for instance, I was informed about this LEAP internship opportunity through my APIASF network. Anyway, not sure if I enjoyed being the center of attention, but it was still VERY cool to be recognized like that, and it was an experience I will never forget.
Week 4
One of the daily direct services that VNCOC provides for our seniors is a hot meal program sponsored by Community Senior Serv. VNCOC is unique in that we are able to negotiate with a local caterer to serve Vietnamese food instead of “American” food unlike other senior centers in the county. Due to budget cuts, we had to lay off our kitchen manager, Co Lai. She is such a sweet lady and DOES NOT look like she is 68; I think every woman wish they can age like her! Anyway, because of this unfortunate situation, the staff at VNCOC has no choice but to pitch in and do our best to make things work. I got to interact and speak in Vietnamese with the seniors every morning when I went around the room to take down names and collect a donation of $2.50 from each person. The food would arrive at 10:30 AM, and we would start preparing in the kitchen by laying out all the trays and getting ready to heat and divide the food. We start serving lunch at 11:30 AM. Each meal usually consists of rice, some sort of salad/veggie, soup, meat/fish, fruit, and milk. On Thursdays, instead of rice, we get to serve some sort of specialty noodles. My supervisor did not want me to work in the kitchen at first because it was not part of my job description, but I really didn’t mind because it’s nice to move around and do different things rather than sit in front of the computer for eight hours everyday. This week, I also put together a Letter of Inquiry for the Unihealth Foundation grant. I also started working on another health grant from the Pacific Life Foundation; this is the one that I will submit by the end of my internship. VNCOC is seeking funding for a new project titled “The Health IT Modernization Plan” in order to upgrade its current paper-based medical records to an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system.
Week 3
After a crazy first two weeks, the three-day Fourth of July weekend could not have come at a better time! This week, I helped with painting a mural for our senior activities room, which is a totally spontaneous project because my supervisor did not even know about it until a few days before. I have painted in the past but never anything like this! I learned how to use different types of paint and tools in order to create different textures on the wall. It was pretty fun but painting can be oh so tiring! It’s amazing how much white space a few volunteers can cover in just a few days. Tricia, our CEO, wanted to make the room look nice for our first ever mental health class graduation on July 19th. The mural definitely brought life to a formerly “blah” room. When I was not painting during the week, I continued looking through and reading more grants that VNCOC has applied for in the past.
Leaping into the Unknown…
These past two weeks (also the first two weeks of the program) have been quite a challenge for me on so many levels to say the least.
I was super excited when I got this internship, and at the same time, did not know what to expect. The opening retreat in Lake Arrowhead was something I have never experienced before. The other interns and I joked how it was like the Real World situation on MTV where 10 strangers (including Lawrence Joe and Linda Akutagawa from the LEAP staff) came to live together for 2.5 days. To my surprise, we all got along pretty quickly. There was a lot of learning and fun involved. Although I haven’t been feeling like myself (still need to go to the doctor), it is comforting to know that this is an 8-week program, so there are plenty of time left to get to know everyone as we work on our group project.
My first day at my CBO was super chill. I work at Vietnamese Community of Orange County, Inc. (VNCOC), which is about a 20-minute drive from where I live. My supervisor, Vi Nguyen, happen to be a former Class of 2009 LIA intern, so it’s nice to work with someone who has been in my shoes. She had a meeting to attend, so I tagged along. It was interesting to sit with a group of representatives from various CBOs and health agencies in Orange County who meet regularly to plan community education events; since the conference that they are planning is fast approaching, there was lots of talk about logistics. Afterwards, we headed back to the main office and Vi gave me a tour of the workplace and introduced me to the other co-workers. Oh, did I mention she also bought me coffee and lunch? :) We briefly went over the workplan, and I learned that this internship is really more catered to my own interests and needs.
On Sunday morning (June 26th), I flew to Washington DC to attend the APIASF (Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund) Higher Education Summit as a student scholar. I have a lot to say about this 2-day conference, so I will blog about this on another post. I flew back to Cali on Wednesday evening (June 29th) and went back to work the next day. I had talked to my supervisor about missing three days of work beforehand, so we agreed that I will make up those hours by participating in outreach events on the weekends.
During the second day at my CBO, my supervisor drove me to visit the other branch offices in the surrounding areas and also introduced me to the staff there. When we got back to the office, I proofread a press release document and was directed to look at examples of successful grant proposals and to familiarize myself with the common components. From what I learned, it takes a lot of work to apply for a grant, but I look forward to being challenged to submit a proposal by the end of my internship. We also had a meeting with the CEO at VNCOC, Tricia Nguyen.
This week, we are supposed to paint a mural for the senior activities room, but the artist did not show up today, so we will start tomorrow.
I have never blogged before and still trying to figure out Tumblr and all the Google tools. By the end of this internship with LEAP and VNCOC, I hope to not only become a Tumblr and Google expert but also to grow as a person and utilize all the skills that I have learned to become a more effective student leader when I come back to campus. I also hope to become more in-touch with my culture and to figure out if I want to pursue a career in the non-profit sector.
