Year 2020 Events

2020 CANWA Annual Board Meeting

CANWA had a board meeting on October 4, 2020. During our annual board meeting we elected our new secretary, Susan Zhao, and new vice-secretary, Paul Cheng.  They both have been involved in many of our events over the last few years, especially the fundraising for Covid-19 issues during the spring months. We are pleased they will be working together with the rest of the board.  Our group is comprised of volunteers who want to provide help to the local Chinese population and also promote Chinese culture to the local community.

华人协会是一个非盈利的组织，旨在帮助本地华人群体，并向本地社区推广中国文化。本协会于10月4号召开了董事会，在会议中选举了二位 秘书。秘书长 Susan Zhao 和副秘书长 Paul Cheng. 二位秘书在过去的几年里 都参与了协会举办的许多活动。特别是在今年为抵御新冠病毒而提倡的筹款筹资活动期间，他们积极配合并服务社区。我们很欣慰二位秘书愿意与其他成员一起共同合作并服务社区。另外，鉴于今年的特殊情况，取消2021 年的春节联欢晚会。但仍然欢迎会员们更新会员卡。仍然欢迎新朋友加入华人协会。世事多变迁，大浪定淘沙。希望我们大家能共同做几件有意义的事情，然后某天突然回首往事，这几件事情会历历在目，回报我们欣慰与感激现在的自己。

Mid Autumn Festival on Zoom - Sept 26

2020 has really been a tough pill to swallow in more ways than one. Fall is here and normally we would go out to enjoy the nice weather and fall color. However, this year, between the violence and the pandemic, we have no choice but staying inside. We all wish that everything is going to go back to normal soon. To cheer everyone up, on Sept. 26, 2020, CANWA staged a special Mid Autumn Festival on Zoom. A group of talented people put up wonderful performance. Everybody enjoyed the show, bravo! 

May 16, 2020 - Food of Love

To continue show our love and appreciation to the people on the front lines, Today we made the second round of meal donations in the Chinese Food of Love Month. During lunch hour, three group of people donated total 87 meals ordered from Chinese restaurants to the police stations of Fayetteville, Springdale, and Rogers. Way to go!!!

May 10 CANWA Covid-19 Donation

On May 10, 2020, a historic day for Chinese Americans and our nation when the Transcontinental Railroad was completed 151 years ago with the unique contribution by early Chinese immigrants, United Chinese Americans (UCA) is partnering with a coalition of communities and organizations nationwide, such as Salvation Army, U.S.-China Restaurant Alliance and TCL, to launch "Chinese American Food of Love Day" to kick off a month-long celebration of Asian Pacific Islander American Heritage.

To honor this date, the three Northwest Arkansas Chinese American organizations, Chinese Association of Northwest Arkansas, Grace Chinese Christian Church, and Walson Chinese school, donated Chinese food ordered from local Chinese restaurants to Washington Regional Medical Center and Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter. 

April 30 CANWA Covid-19 Donation

One April 30, our COVID-19 Response Team made the largest donation ever since the beginning of this effort. We donated 3,000 face masks and $7,500 cash to Washington Regional Medical Center. Channel 5 News TV came to the scene and interviewed our team. So far our major donation activities have come to the end. We decided to keep a small amount of face masks as a reservation for emergency situations. The small amount of cash left will be used to support the frontline healthcare works with meals. The sewing team will continue cranking out more fabric masks with the remaining cloth. Way to go sewing team!
The following is what we have received, donated, and left:
1. Medical face masks: donated 22,460; remaining 2,373.
2. Home-made fabric masks: donated 501; sold 214 for fundraising; remaining 233
3. N95: donated 464; remaining 112
4. Gowns: donated 200; remaining 20
5. Disposable raincoat ponchos (used as makeshift gowns): donated 85; remaining 145
6. Gloves: donated 3,210; remaining 600
7. KN95: donated 80; remaining 50
8. Cash: total donation received $20,458.44; cloth mask fundraising sale $3,448.96; other
fundraising sale $867.98; total cash spent $22,662.72; remaining cash $2,112.66

April 17, CANWA Covid-19 Donation

In the past week, our COVID-19 Response Teams continued working hard and focusing on reaching out to more frontline and vulnerable institutions to provide PPE to them. Our efforts are widely supported by the local community and news media. We were interviewed and reported by the local TV stations and Democrat Gazette. Due to PPE shortage, government PPE supply currently focuses on large institutions. Smaller institutions are still desperate for PPE. We made 30 PPE donations in the past week. Since our effort started in mid-March, we have made PPE and monetary donations to the following 44 institutions and private clinics. 

Our fabric mask sewing team works extremely hard. And they made a total 833 pretty and high quality masks so far. And they continue cranking out more masks everyday. Most of the masks are donated to the people on the frontlines. A total 160 masks are sold for fundraising and $2,692.24 was raised so far. Great job and big thumbs up to our sewing team!!!

The every Thursday food delivery to Washington Regional Hospital drive-through testing staff continues into the second week. The testing staff are very happy and grateful to our effort. They well deserve this treatment because they are the real heroes.

Till this day, we have received $20,410.19 monetary donation and a $2,692.24 fund raised from fabric mask sales.  

April 9 CANWA Covid-19 Donation

In the past several days, our COVID-19 Response Teams continued working hard and reached out to more institutions for PPE donation. The staff members of the above donation receiving institutions are so happy to receive our PPE and very grateful to us. We want to emphasize that their gratitude belongs to all the people who made the generous monetary and PPE donations to CANWA, without your donation none of these can be done, the gratitude especially belongs to the people who not just made donation to CANWA, but also work tirelessly around the clock to get all these accomplished. These are the people who work behind the scenes to collect donated PPE, make fabric masks, evaluate PPE manufacturer’s qualification, make the orders, keep the books, reach out to the institutions in need of PPE, deliver the donation, contact media, and report our activities etc.

Our home-made fabric masks are pretty and fit. They are getting popular and have become hot ticket items. There is a lot of hard work behind these beautiful fabric masks. To meet the high demands of the fabric masks, the sisters of our sewing team are all hands on deck. They dragged their husbands in and enlisted the help of their young children. Great job and big thanks to our sewing team!

Starting from this week, once a week we will order 10 lunches from Hunan Manor restaurant and deliver them to the Washington Regional Hospital staff who do the drive-through Coronavirus testing.

The pandemic will not go away any time soon and the lack of PPE situation won’t be any better soon either. As long as the situation lasts, we will keep lending our helping hands to our communities. The more PPE in our communities, the less spreading of coronavirus. This is a once in our lifetime global disaster. We hope that everyone is not just a witness of this historic moment, but also is part of this historic moment. 

April 2 CANWA Covid-19 Donation

The NWA Chinese community COVID-19 Response Team continues working tirelessly to help local hospitals, law enforcement, and first responders to get ready before the coronavirus apex hit.

1. The first order of the 13,000 surgical face masks starts arriving in separate shipments. The second order of 5,000 surgical face masks is expected to be delivered on April 2.
2. On April 1, we made donation of face masks to Fayetteville Police Department and Vantage Point Behavioral Health Hospital.
3. On April 2, we made donation of face masks to Northwest Medical Center of Springdale. This event will be aired on Fox 24 at 5:30pm and KNWA at 6:00pm this evening.
4. The sisters of our Face Mask Sewing Team have been working around the clock at home to cut and sew the home-made fabric face masks. Till this day they have made 289 fabric face masks and many more are being worked on.
5. So far 43 pieces of fabric face masks have been donated to people in need. 65 pieces of fabric face masks have been sold in the fundraising events. The raised fund is used to purchased PPE for donation.

The COVID-19 Response Team will continue to carry out our current efforts together with our local communities to get through this pandemic crises.

March 24 CANWA Covid-19 Donation

The COVID-19 Response Team continued working tirelessly and making great progress to help our local health workers. Big thanks to everyone in this effort and they are a bunch with heart of gold. AND YOU CAN HELP TOO, please click https://www.canwa.org/donate to play your part. Donated money and its use are posted by Juan Yan regularly.

1. The first order of 13,000 surgical masks from China are on their way to US.
2. The second order of 5,000 surgical masks from the States are on their way too.
3. A small clinic was forced to shut down for a few days due to the lack of medical PPE. Some health workers have to use raincoats as makeshift PPE. So we ordered a small number of disposable raincoats.
4. A sewing team was assembled a few days ago to make the makeshift cloth masks for health workers. Sewing team sisters are very busy too at buying, washing, cutting, sewing. Rubber bands and fabrics are in short supply too.
5. Wang Qiang picked up donated PPE and distributed them to various hospitals and clinics that are in desperate need.
6. Continued to contact hospitals and clinics to understand their current needs.
7. Continued to search and verify medical PPE suppliers for future orders to ensure the donated money is well spent. This process is extremely time consuming and laborious.
8. A fundraising video by Daniel Xuan has been released and posted.

March 20 CANWA Covid-19 Response Team Kickoff

“At War With No Ammo"
“Our hands are tied. We need masks. But no one can find them,”
“The lack of protective gear is imperiling the ability of medical workers and putting their own lives at risk.”

These are the headlines we have seen so frequently these days that make our heart broken. We know when our medical workers are down, our communities, our people and our country are at greater risks. As an integral part of the community in Northwest Arkansas, we, Chinese Association of NWA, Walson Chinese school and Grace Chinese Christian church joined together. Starting on March 20, in a short period of three days. Money, surgical masks, N95 respirators, medical gloves have poured in from a lot of families, of which a lot of those protective gears were sent from their parents and relatives in China. We want to ensure our local medical staff and law enforcement personnel are well protected while they are out there to protect our community. Today 3 organizations were represented by Dr. Lizhen Gui, Mr. Qiang Wang, and Ms. Jingshu Chen, have made an initial donation to Washington Regional Medical Center and Walker Heart Institute. Meanwhile we are trying to purchase more protective gears ASAP. If you would like to donate, please contact us. Thanks!

2020 CANWA Chinese New Year Gala

鼠年的新春佳节到来之际，西北阿肯色华人协会于2020年1月18号成功举办了第六届春节联欢晚会。
哈勃高中的餐厅里充满了节日气氛，来宾们津津有味地品尝着地道的中国传统佳肴，享受与家人和朋友团聚的喜乐。廊道上灯笼高挂，春联、剪纸 烘托着浓厚的年味，小商品琳琅满目，写毛笔字的女士挥毫泼墨，为来宾们书写他们的中文名字。礼堂内晚会开始，主持人在台上介绍了一些中国人过春节的风俗。之后，开始精彩的表演，节目有中国传统的民族舞蹈和音乐，少儿歌舞，狮子舞，龙舞合唱表演等等。
春晚的成功凝聚了幕后志愿者们的辛勤付出，也真诚感谢当地商家企业的支持和朋友们的爱心参与。因为你们的慷慨赞助，我们才有可能为当地社区提供这样一晚富有中国风味的娱乐生活；因为你们的爱心，我们才有机会帮助优秀的中国贫困学生追求大学梦。
我们不希望有追求的学子因家庭贫困而放弃高等教育，我们也坚信，教育能帮助清除贫困。借着中国文化，集合我们的爱心和力量，让我们把社区变得更加和谐，愿有志的学子们梦想成真。

Chinese Association of NWA celebrated Year of the Rat on 01-18-2020 in Springdale Har-Ber High School.
Cafeteria was full of guests enjoying authentic Chinese food hot items like egg rolls and dumplings were very popular. Along the hallway, red lanterns, couplets and paper-cut art brought out rich festive atmosphere. The gift baskets and gift cards were very inviting. The young ladies were busy writing guests' names in Chinese with brushes and ink.
On the stage of PAC, the hostess briefly explained the Chinese New Year tradition before the show started. Then Various programs fascinated the audience with folk dances, beautiful music, Dragon Dance and lion dance.

The success of the celebration resulted from the hard work of volunteers behind the scenes, also from the support of local businesses and the love of friends involved. Because of your generosity, we were able to provide such a Chinese-style entertainment to our local community for one night. Thanks to your love, we had the opportunity to help outstanding Chinese less privileged students to pursue their dream of college.
We do not want to see the poverty to become the barrier to higher education, but firmly believe that education can help eradicate poverty. Through our Chinese culture, we gather our love and strength to make our community more harmonious, may students dreams come true.