The little artists who attended the FCC November Art Making Workshop in Irvine on November 1, created beautiful drawings of Chinese lanterns, mandalas, dragons and butterflies. Artist, Melanie Vogel, introduced them to Chinese brush painting and oil pastels.

The best part, though, was seeing the pride on all of their faces as they viewed their masterpeice. And of course the parents didn't mind chatting while the kids were having their class.

A fun time was had by all at Orange County’s 12th annual Moon Festival Banquet on October 4 held at the Ten Ten Seafood Restaurant in Artesia. To start off the event, families played a game in which every guest had a picture of their Chinese zodiac animal pinned to their back, and children ran about the large dining room trying to count up all the roosters, rats, dragons, etc. to win the grand prize, a giant stuffed panda. Perhaps it was predictable that pigs represented the largest group that turned out for the banquet, but there was a scattering of every type of animal, and kids had a great time trying to count them all up.

At its 18th Annual Image Awards on October 2, OCA-Greater Los Angeles bestowed its Community Service Award to out-going FCC president Jeri Okamoto Floyd.  The award honors Jeri’s leadership in guiding FCC–Los Angeles from a fledgling chapter to a thriving nonprofit charitable organization. Jeri helped integrate the FCC adoption community with the broader Asian Pacific American community by establishing cultural interactive programs such as the award-winning FCC-SoCal/China Care Bruins Buddy Program, which pairs FCC kids (6 to teens) with UCLA student mentors for monthly activities.

Since 2005, FCC-SoCal has been coordinating a mentorship program with the China Care Bruins, a student-run group at UCLA. Last year, more than 50 FCC children (ages 6 to 15) were paired with college student “Big Buddies.” They participated in monthly Sunday afternoon get-togethers on the UCLA campus throughout the academic year.

We are delighted to announce that there are a few additional openings in the Buddy Program for the 2009-2010 academic year (October 2009 through May 2010). This includes the Little Buddies group (age 6 and older, up through 5th grade) and the new Youth Buddies group, for kids currently in 6th grade/Middle School and above.

Do you have a teen who seems to have lost interest in FCC but might like hanging out with a really neat bunch of college kids?  If so, we would love to hear from you.
 
The relationship between FCC and the UCLA China Care club has been beyond successful.  It has provided wonderful friendships and role models for many FCC kids.  Now, both China Care & FCC are ready to spin off one or more programs for our older FCC kids.

Our very own China Care Bruins Club at UCLA has been honored by the national China Care Foundation, receiving the First Annual “Outstanding Community Service: Mentoring Program” Award.

Those of us who have been participating in the Bruin Buddy Program know that our Big Buddies are terrific and run a great program – but it is wonderful for the students to receive national recognition for their innovative efforts to empower our kids and to be the example for other China Care chapters.  Go Bruins!