Third Annual Book Donation [in California]

By Christopher Park
Published: May 12, 2011
California, USA

The Vietnamese and Cambodian Student Association had its third annual book donation event next to the Pollak Library yesterday to send books to children in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The event was a joint project between Cal State Fullerton and universities in Vietnam and Cambodia. Students walking around campus were given the opportunity to donate a dollar to cover the cost of a book and to personalize a book with their signature before they were sent overseas. A wide variety of children’s books were available to pick out and personalize with a signature, from pop-up books to simple stories with simple life lessons.

Even though Cambodian and Vietnamese children learn English in elementary school, their schools had a dearth of books in English.

“I went over to Cambodia and Vietnam to visit our partner libraries in partner universities,” said John Hickok, CSUF’s Outreach librarian. “The elementary schools over in Vietnam and Cambodia have very few books in English.”

The idea of book donations developed after a visit to Vietnam and Cambodia from President Milton Gordon and other faculty staff, where Gordon signed a memorandum of understanding in the Pannasastra University of Cambodia, which was a formal agreement to develop and execute joint projects.

“This is an example of one of them,” Hickok said. “We take these books and then the Pannasastra students and myself will be distributing them to the children.”

Photos are sent back from Pannasastra to the CSA and VSA so that they know exactly where and who the books are going to, Hickok said.

CSA and VSA members have found the book donations to be a way of reaching to their countries, even if they’ve never been to their country.

“It’s really empowering to send books and literature to little kids so they can develop their language,” said Nancy Tran, a CSA member and sociology major.

David Chau, another CSA member and a marketing major, also finds it as an opportunity to simply help the less fortunate.

“Cambodia’s still struggling to recover from the genocide,” said Chau. “So it’s really great that we can send these books to Cambodia so that these children can have something.”

“A lot of the CSA and VSA members are Cambodian-American and Vietnamese-American and have not yet actually been to their country of origin or their heritage,” Hickok said. “So this is kind of a way of connecting to their heritage without actually being there.”