In the past spring there developed a friendly competition between members of the Classes of ‘71 and ’76: these classes prepared to celebrate their 40th and 35th, respectively, reunions by raising a class gift for the benefit of
Asian American Cultural Center (AACC). Working closely with Dean Saveena Dhall of AACC and members of Yale Development Office staff, Alice Young (YC ’71) and Kunduck Moon (’76) solicited their fellow class members to make a donation to add to the AACC endowment started in 2006. These donations also count toward 1) each class’s reunion gift raised from all members of the class, not just the Asian American alumni and 2) the current capital campaign that Yale is conducting.
This is the second time that members of Classes of ’71 and ’76 have raised funds for AACC: as of end of May this year there was a balance of some $76,000 in the AACC endowment which was started in 2006 by members of Classes of ’71 and ‘76. The AACC endowment is managed by Yale’s David Swensen and his staff as a part of Yale’s overall endowment, and income from it will be used to supplement the program budget from the University.
The competition is over and the numbers are in: Class of ’71 raised $20,001 and Class of ’76 raised $30,500! To be fair, the number of Asian Americans in Class of ’76 was about four times that of Class of ’71. So, including the new pledges, AACC’s endowment now well exceeds $126,000!
If you will be celebrating your class reunion next year, please contact Dean Dhall, Alice Young, or Kunduck Moon to find out how you can organize your fellow Asian American classmates to donate to Yale and AACC simultaneously.
AACC thanks Leighton Chong, Lowell Chun-Hoon, , Glenn Lau Kee, Don Nakanishi, Brad Wong and Alice Young of Class of ’71, as well as Otto Chu, Tonny Ho, Ken Inadomi, Carol Lee and Kunduck Moon of Class of ’76 for their generosity and support.