On August 5, 2006, the Yee Fong Toy Association of New York announced the 100 scholarship winners at its annual scholarship award ceremony. As in the past, the event started at 12:00 noon with the traditional ancestor worship at the Association’s office and continued at 1pm at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association’s auditorium at 62 Mott St. Our guest speaker this year, joining us from Albany, was Ms. Lai Sun Yee. For the past few years, Lai Sun has been very generous with providing her time to our association. She is the General Counsel to the New York State Emergency Management Office and is the President of the Asian American Bar Association of New York.

We are also fortunate to have Mrs. Kennie Yee as our emcee. Kennie always does a terrific job here, as well as with our Spring Banquet, just as if a professional would. She started first by introducing our Eastern U.S. Grand President Peter Yee, Grand Advisor John B. Yee, Advisor Hem Fook Yee, Advisor Andy Yu, Advisor Shu Chan Yu, President Kenneth Yee, Vice President Gong Sum, Legal Counsel Ms. Suk Wah Mah, guest speaker Ms. Lai Sun Yee, our special guests cousins from the Mah and Tse Associations. After some formalities, Kenneth welcomed everyone and spoke briefly about this year scholarship. Unique to this year was the donation of $10,000 from family of Grand Elder Dit Nam Yu. Uncle Dit Nam was a strong believer in excellence in education and the $2000 given out this year will help four students continue to achieve that. Peter spoke about the importance of memberships and the donations collected for this year’s National Convention held in LA on August 12-16, 2006. For the next three years, the annual allocation for scholarship moneys from San Francisco Headquarters is based on those numbers. He used for example Columbus, Ohio where there are only 40 members; their allocation will be much smaller than New York. He hopes that everyone understands and all the scholarship winners continue to excel in school. Andy spoke briefly and introduced our guest speaker Ms. Lai Sun Yee. Besides Lai Sun’s job serving the public, she has a master’s degree in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School, received her JD from Cornell Law School and her BA from Cornell University. He then asked Peter, Kenneth, Gong Sum and Ms. Mah to come forward to present Lai Sun with an official framed certificate acknowledging her position as Honorary General Counsel for our association.

Following a short photo op, Lai Sun thanked everyone for the honor. She spoke to the audience about following your dreams. Throughout life, people will give you advice. Lai Sun continued emphasizing that one needs to find a comfort level, to be true to who you are when pursuing your passion and dreams. She spoke about her experience during September 11, 2001. In the midst of the terrorist attack, she was on her way to the New York City Office of Emergency Management where she works in the World Trade Center. She saw the destruction, but knew she had to do her job. Lai Sun continued to tell how this event inspired her to pursue more homeland security and defense studies and to move on as General Counsel for the New York State Emergency Management Office. Most importantly, she said we should do what we enjoy. Job titles are just titles. Learn as much as we can in the pursuit of our dreams and when there is a chance, we can give back to the community.

After the presentation of awards to all our winners, Czarine Yee represented the scholarship winners to address the audience. She thanked everyone for the scholarship and spoke about what the family association meant to her. She appreciates a place where you can learn about Chinese heritage, promotes the Chinese culture and traditions. She encourages everyone to work hard in school as well as in the community.

Congratulations to Czarine, all the scholarship winners and their parents for a job well done and continued success. We would like to thank Peter, Ms. Lai Sun Yee, honored guests and all the volunteers for their time and efforts in making this event special. Again, many thanks to Kennie for volunteering her time each year to liven up this event.

Frank Yee, NY

余宏基