Reported by Samuel Li
As of Winter, 2020, the COVID situation in San Diego has not been alleviated. There are over 155,595 confirmed cases in San Diego, as of December 30th. With over three thousand new cases everyday, many families are struggling in this holiday season. In order to help out those less fortunate in our community, the AYLUS San Diego community has participated in local activities and made donations to local food banks.
In past years, AYLUS volunteers helped served dinner to those in need at the Salvation Army Christmas dinner event. Under this year’s circumstances, this will not be possible. However, the AYLUS San Diego Committee has looked into other methods to help those in need during this holiday season.
Firstly, many AYLUS volunteer families made donations to Alliance of Chinese Americans San Diego (ACA San Diego) and San Diego Food Bank’s Virtual Food Drive, in which donations were matched dollar for dollar up to $2,500. With these donations, many volunteers hoped to help out the less fortunate in their local communities.
The following volunteer families made donations to the Virtual Food Drive: Chengda Li,Conan Wu, Chengming Li, Owen Nie, Eric Lin, Mitchell Wang and Jonathan Backues
Secondly, due to AYLUS San Diego Branch’s close connections to students from our past successful tutoring events such as Challenge Camp or ESL tutoring, many student families also decided to make donations through AYLUS San Diego to the virtual food Drive.
The following student families made donations to the Virtual food drive: Simon Liu, and Xiaoyun Jiang
Finally, due to the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the health and education of children from low-income families, AYLUS San Diego is prepared to launch a program specifically aimed at helping these children. As families who have also felt the impact of the pandemic to varying degrees, many student and volunteer families are very supportive of this program, making many donations to AYLUS San Diego in order to make this event a reality.
The following individuals made donations for this cause: Alice and Linda Yang, Darren and Emery Cui, Jacqueline Au, Jingjing Zhang
Overall, despite the difficulties of the pandemic, AYLUS San Diego still strives to help out its community in December of 2020 by encouraging donations to local food drives. In total, a donation of $347.50 was made to the virtual food drive, with a total of $695 after being matched dollar for dollar by ACA San Diego. This accounts to around 3475 meals donated to those in need.
