Asian American Community Center focuses on volunteering, cultural heritage
When people in the community are facing food insecurity, the Asian American Community Center steps up to fill the need.
Thuy Nguyen has been volunteering to provide food for homeless shelters for the past 10 years. She founded the Annandale-based AACC in 2020 to expand those efforts as so many peoples’ lives were upended by the Covid pandemic.
While the AACC focuses on community service to help all those in need, it also supports cultural awareness to educate the public about the artistic and other contributions of the Asian American population.
Nguyen immigrated from Vietnam in 1996 as a refugee. Her family would have left sooner, but they had to wait until her father, a former employee at the U.S. embassy in Saigon, was released from jail. An IT specialist at the US. Department of Commerce, Nguyen also serves on the Fairfax County Coordinating Council on Aging and Adults with Disabilities.
The AACC provides meals to about 60-100 unsheltered people in the hypothermia program at the Bailey’s shelter in Bailey’s Crossroads every fourth Sunday between October and March. They recently distributed 12 donated turkeys to the shelter.
On the third Sunday of every month, the center provides lunches for about 60 adults and children in Manassas. Every three months, it hosts a lunch for underserved people in Woodbridge.
The AACC has about 100 people on its member list and can call upon many more volunteers, says Nguyen. Meals for the needy are prepared by volunteers in their homes or donated by restaurants.
The center also works with Vietnamese student groups at George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University along with the Mid-Atlantic Union of Vietnamese Student Associations.
The AACC shines a spotlight on the music, dance, craft, and culinary traditions of various Asian communities by hosting the annual Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Festival in May at the James Lee Community Center.
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The center will participate in the Chinese/Vietnamese New Year’s Festival Feb. 17 at Luther Jackson Middle School, the Lunar New Year Festival in Richmond, the International Festival in Springfield, and the Mid-Autumn Children’s Festival in Arlington.
The AACC also sponsors the Lac Long Quan lion dance team and AnPHOgettable, a dance group made up mostly of high school students that performs at local events, including the 2023 Taste of Annandale. The goal, says Nguyen, is to educate Vietnamese youths about their cultural heritage and to bring those artistic traditions to the broader community.