风雨无阻现彩虹—第二届UCAA YES美国总统义工奖及救世军义工奖颁奖典礼圆满举行

Alexis, yiyi

2021年9月18日，一向骄阳似火的亚利桑那突然狂风骤雨，飞沙走石。经过紧急磋商，UCAA YES青少年团队决定风雨无阻，如期在cityof chandler City Hall举办美国总统义工奖及救世军义工奖颁奖典礼。 City of Chandler kevin.hartke市长真是我们的好市长，在罕见的暴雨中撑伞准时到场祝贺并为义工们颁发了美国总统义工服务奖（PVSA）及救世军义工奖。在UCAA会长JerryDai致辞后，市长发表讲话，盛赞青少年义工关怀社区的服务奉献精神。青少年义工Alexis Li代表大家表达了心声：今天我们在不期而遇的风雨中不改初心，风雨无阻现彩虹，这正是YES青少年的服务精神，两年来我们遇到了各种困难，但是我们坚持不懈，风雨无阻，打造了我们更加美好的社区。       今年YES团队喜获双奖–美国总统义工奖及救世军义工奖。25名义工分别获得PVSA 金奖（14）， 银奖（2），铜奖（9），大部分义教是高中生。YES青少年团队创建在2020年5月Covid-19形势最危急的时刻。世界各地封国封城，学校关闭，学校教育在仓促间180度急转弯，几乎是一夜间改成网上远程教学。人们纷纷惊呼，教育质量急剧跌落，特别是低收入家庭的青少年的教育成为燃眉之急。亚利桑那的华二代ALEXIS Li, kevin Dai, William Deng等发出YES! WE SERVE的心声，发起并组织Youth,Education, Service团队，与救世军合作，开展面前低收入家庭，学业滞后的青少年1：1免费课业辅导。这个项目吸引了来自美国加拿大十几个州的义工，已经进行了4期，每个星期开办高达180多节课，帮助许多在COVID-19期间学业受到严重影响的少年，提高了成绩，增强了自信心，增强了学习能力，有的从落后学生一跃而成为受到学校表彰的优等生。学生家长纷纷寄来感谢信感谢信。

Dear Alexis,Thank you for teaching usdebate and to think something up onto my head immediately and just go with theflow. I learned many new things during the time in debate class and sparringwith my classmates. Even though I had experience debating, it was nice debatingpeople again. I was able to really remember how I used to debate. I hope wecross paths again soon as this was a very fun class to relearn. It gave mepractice and I am still shy to do this. Again I appreciate of what you do. Ithank you for this time and have a great rest of your day!

Thank you  Ms.Alexis for helping me with my debating skill. I liked the times where we keptvoting a tie for each match and you have to be our tiebreaker. I like you are avery engaging and funny teacher and how you kept making me laugh when I wasmuted. I think that even if I’m the youngest in our group, I think I can stilldefeat you at debating. I would like to tell you that my goal in the group isto defeat everyone by debating. I like your opinions about banning tests. Ithink I can either be in your summer school, debate or tutoring next year. Ihope we can still meet some days later. (Junyang)

教学相长。义教老师们在锻炼了能力，享受到服务社区的喜悦。。义教老师Derek Wang说：Tutoring Sampson was a new experience forme, since it was my first time teaching anyone. We had some complications, butmostly I had a good time teaching him new material. I am proud that I helpedhim to get work done and I hope he found the experience meaningful.

义教老师Crystal说：I really appreciate the opportunity thatYES provided to Crystal to serve younger  kids as a tutor. She has been aYES tutor for the past year and really enjoys it. By teaching the kids,she is growing into a more patient, responsible and empathetic person.Although as a10th-grader she is having a heavy workload, she still takesthe extra work to be a tutor with YES because she really likes it.And she and her students became friends.

YES 青少年团队还与其他社团合作广泛开展了了其他社会公益活动:2020/2021 Food of love, Stop Asian Hate Rally, 凤凰之夜。邀请亚裔、非裔、拉丁裔、中东裔、犹太裔及欧裔青少年等同心同意同声吟诵，拍摄诗朗诵“我依然相信“。有一位蝉联两届诗歌朗诵地区赛冠军的犹太裔少年致谢说”再次感谢你们提供这样创造和平和联结的美好的机会 Thank you again for this wonderful opportunityto create peace and connection“