Each year, Arcadia High School’s (AHS) Chinese Parents Booster Club (CPBC) announces the recipients of their mini grants at their May meeting, arguably one of the most important CPBC meetings of the year. On May 20, CPBC members held their meeting at the MPR to present mini grants to coaches, teachers, program directors, and school organizations. 

Mini grants are small amounts of funding that school programs can apply to receive. Each year, the CPBC Mini Grant Committee meets together to allocate funds for each recipient based on their requests.

The meeting began with the Co-Presidents, Leslie Ma and Judy Lin, opening the meeting and presenting a special recognition award to Lisa and Ken Chan. For the past six years, the Chan family has contributed both monetary and nonmonetary donations to support various AHS programs, and has funded over $2000 of CPBC’s scholarships for students each year. In honor of their contributions, CPBC decided to change their scholarship name from Arcadia High School Chinese Parents Booster Club Scholarship to Arcadia High School Chinese Parents Booster Club Chan Family Scholarship.

Afterward, the microphone was passed to Pearl Cheung, this year’s Mini Grant Chair and next year’s CPBC President. She presented the breakdown for the 2021-2022 mini grants; the total contribution for this year was $51,111.75; $1500 interim mini grant for Boys Basketball, $40,271.75 annual mini grants for Arcadia Educational Foundation (AEF), music, sports, and other programs; and a $2500 teacher’s grant for Apache News’ Francisco Sunez.

Next, the mini grant checks were presented to each program, with the respective representatives coming up to receive the check and say a few words of appreciation. 

The first mini grant was presented to AEF for $2500, accepted by the AEF Vice President Carol Howard and AEF representatives. The Ceramics course received a mini grant of $2000, and the Rancho Learning Center received $500, accepted by Leigh Chavez on behalf of Principal John Tung.

The next category of mini grants was for music. Colorguard and Percussion both received $3000, which was used as financial assistance to travel to the Winter Guard International World Championship and National Percussion Championship in Dayton, Ohio. Marching Band received $3800, which will be used to help purchase new instruments. Band and Percussion Director Kevin Sherill, representing all three of the groups, accepted the mini grants.

“I’d like to thank the Chinese Parents Booster Club for their incredible generosity and the amount of hard work that they put in for fundraising to support all the groups here at Arcadia High School,” said Mr. Sherill.

For performing arts, Orchesis Dance Company received $4000 to provide financial assistance for students to travel to Florida to participate in the World Stride Festival and perform at Disney World. The Performing Arts Center received $5000, which was used toward replacing ground rows on the site.

For sports teams, the Badminton team received $1500 for traveling expenses to San Diego, the Baseball team received $5,471.75 for a pitching machine, the Football team received $5000 for purchasing a new set of uniforms for the upcoming season, the Softball team also received $4000  for the use of new uniforms, and the Volleyball team received $500 for purchasing a new shipment of balls.

Finally, for academic teams, Quiz Bowl received $400, which will be used to help fund their trip to nationals. 

Because of the pandemic, the method of fundraising for these mini grants was different compared to previous years. Due to an Omicron surge, CPBC decided to cancel their Chinese New Year Fundraiser Festival. Instead, they raised funds primarily through advertisements in their program book, direct donations, and gift basket sales.

“Thank you to all of the dedicated volunteers, parents, and community sponsors,” Cheung said. “We wouldn’t be able to raise this much money year after year without you.”

Photo courtesy of AUSD DCI Intern Kathy Liu