The Vietnamese American Cancer Foundation (VACF) cordially invites you to the –  9th Annual Gala: Mask Up, Live it Up.

The gala celebrates the highlights and achievements of VACF and what we had accomplished throughout the previous years, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. But most importantly, the gala symbolizes the unification of the community to fight against cancer.

The past two years was undoubtedly one of the most difficult, and darkest times for us all. We witnessed pain, suffering, and agony. We lost loved ones – family members, friends, and acquaintances. We lived in fear, not knowing how long this pandemic was going to last. We lived in confusion, not knowing what to do next or what is going to happen next. Even until now, the fight is not yet over. But with a little hope and faith, there is nothing that we cannot overcome.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started to emerge, VACF had to temporarily halt operations since the fear of the pandemic prevented many of our community members from seeking cancer care. Our team pivoted from face-to-face in-person service delivery to remotely online and contact free. We reached out to our community members to see what we can do to alleviate their burden during this challenging time. From there, we saw the need to address the loneliness, anxiety, and shortage of basic necessities that our community members were facing.

As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, VACF assembled emergency care packages and collaborated with local community partners to mobilize food distributions, and we were able to provide free, fresh produce along with non-perishable food boxes to community members and their families. When we recognized that this pandemic was not going away, the demand of needs only increased and our team went into full COVID-19 battle mode while fighting cancer on the side.

Since 2020, VACF provided one-on-one support, webinars, cancer screening reminders and services navigation, including COVID-19 and cancer education, hardship assistance, testing, quarantine, and isolation support, to more than 2,043 families and 10,290 community members. When the COVID-19 vaccine became available to the public, our team collaborated with clinical partners to vaccinate community members who were unable to navigate on their own due to linguistic and technological barriers.

As COVID-19 continue to spread, the future has never felt so unpredictable. While VACF is doing our best to cater to the needs of the community, we are also doing everything possible to sustain our services to the community. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to hold any of our fundraising events in the past year. Therefore, we hope that you will give us your support now so that we can venture through this challenging time together. With that, VACF invite you to join us as we move forward to new beginnings, and a new normal. Life is precious, so get ready to mask up, and live it up!

*VACF observes and will follow all current COVID-19 guidelines.*