AYLUS Oakland Gardens Award Ceremony at Fort Totten (6/27/26)

On June 27, 2026, AYLUS Oakland Gardens held its 234th event. For this event, AYLUS Oakland Gardens held the 3rd Annual Volunteer Award Ceremony and Board Member Induction. This ceremony was held at Fort Totten. The ceremony started around 8:00 AM and ended at 12:00PM am. After the ceremony, the park rangers at Fort Totten gave AYLUS Oakland Gardens members a tour of the area and showed the members the Water Battery in the area.

We first started the event by setting up some canopy tents and placing tarps underneath them, since we wanted our members to be in the shade during the ceremony. Next, we gather all the members to be seated underneath the canopy. That’s when the speeches started; two senior members of AYLUS Oakland Gardens were the hosts for this ceremony.

The senior members started off with some opening remarks, mentioning how far AYLUS Oakland Gardens has grown as a team. That AYLUS Oakland Gardens has made it to another year through teamwork and helping the community. After the opening remarks were over, the senior members handed the microphone to Ada Matt, as she was the one who was going to award the members who received a Bronze Award. These awards are based on the number of hours a member has earned from volunteering and the age category the member is in. After the Bronze Award was given out, Liz Asaro was handed the microphone as she was the one handing out the Silver Award to the members who had earned it. Once Liz Asaro had handed out all of the Silver Awards, Maurren Regan was handed the microphone. Maureen Regan was the one who handed the members the Gold Award. As Maureen Regan finished handing out the Gold Awards, Sandra Ung was handed the microphone because she was going to introduce the newly inducted board members. Each newly inducted board member was awarded a certificate that confirmed their new title. To end the induction ceremony, the newly appointed president gave a speech bought that they will do as a president moving forward.

Once the Ceremony was over, Park Ranger AJ and Park Ranger Joshua came to give all of our members a tour around Fort Totten. They taught us that the visitor center was once a building that helped build and dismantle torpedoes. They also showed the members the Water Battery at Fort Totten. They talked about the history of why the Water Battery was never finished. The cause was that the granite used to build the structure was too strong to withstand the destruction caused by cannon shells.

We would like to thank Ranger AJ and Ranger Joshua for giving our members such an amazing tour around Fort Totten and the Water Battery. We would also like to thank Ada Mata, Liz Asaro, Maureen Regan, and Sanda Ung for coming to the Award Ceremony and supporting our organization for the past 3 years. We look forward to working with you all in the future. Lastly, we would like to thank all of our members and volunteers for all the hard work they’ve done over the year.

Our Volunteers:

1. Hong Hao Liu: 4 hours

2. Sophia You: 4 hours

3. Selena You: 4 hours

4. Stephanie You: 4 hours

5. Jia Qi Liu: 4 hours

6. Matthew Lin: 4 hours

7. Amy Liu: 4 hours

8. Ioklee Lin: 4 hours

9. Iokseng Lin: 4 hours

10. Ioknor Ln: 4 hours

11. Iokting Lin: 4 hours