(From Nguoi Viet 2's Letter from the editor, Friday, December 08, 2006 - By Anh Do)

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. — Let’s have a meaningful Christmas. And while we are buying for our families, think about other Vietnamese families. They need you.

That was the message, delivered onstage, targeted at an audience of more than 500 at Help the Poor’s annual fund raiser kick off earlier this month. For seven years, the nonprofit and its volunteers have visited isolated areas of Việt Nam bringing hope, along with dollars, doctors, food, medicine and school supplies to those desperate for it.

If you cannot make the trips, here’s how you can support from home, organizer Vĩnh Hoàng urged as members around her passed out envelopes asking for donations. Radio personality Minh Phượng and the event’s emcees, aided by Father Mai Khải Hoàn, who leads the group’s board of directors, spoke about the plight of the villagers and how just a small amount of money can go a long way. Consider:

° $10 feeds five street orphans for four weeks

° $20 buys enough rice for an elder for a month

° $35 pays for a year of schooling for an elementary school student, or $50 for a high school student

° $100 can provide a well with clean water, a wheelchair, or an instructor specializing in computer training

° $700 builds a brick-layered home for folks without real homes

° $2,000 covers a heart operation and so on...

Hoàng detailed a wish list, narrating a moving video with scenes of men, women and children, some handicapped, some suffering from deformity, disease, lack of nourishment mental and physical.

The charity, she said, focuses on three areas of improvement:

° Education, by offering classes, vocational lessons and scholarships

° Health care, through clinics, surgeries, equipment and first aid

° Food and clothing, benefiting the elderly, disabled and orphans

Bishop Dominic Mai Thanh Lương, who has just returned from three weeks in the homeland, said “there are no words” to describe the poverty he witnessed. He pushed the local Catholic community to adopt such struggles as its own struggles — and to stay active.

Sure, we may see faces in the news, hear stories on air, but “these are our people, our fellow human beings, and they shouldn’t have to live like that,” Judge Nho Trọng Nguyễn said to the crowd, after he and his wife pledged $500.

For how you can make a difference, log onto the Web site:helpthepoorvietnam.org or call (714) 537-3701.

I signed up. How could you not?

Yours,
Anh B. Do