Posted by Emily Liang, Vivian Wu, and Michelle Lu
As a long time partner of Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach (APILO), Asian Women’s Shelter (AWS) recently invited some Youth Advisory Council (YAC) interns to volunteer and attend their 30th Anniversary Gala at Bespoke Westfield Centre. Asian Women’s Shelter focuses on providing resources to “women, children, and transgender survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence”. The gala attendees consisted of many inspiring women activists who offer services including shelter, legal services or counseling to women who may need assistance. The three of us were honored and thankful for the opportunity to volunteer at this AWS Gala. Before the event had started, we decorated the children’s section and prepared card gift sets by packing and ribboning the boxes efficiently amongst other volunteers. As the event had started, Michelle regulated the flow of attendees outside the check-in tables by instructing attendees where to register. It was nice to see Beverly and Ny Nourn; both women who have made big impacts on advocating for Domestic Violence in San Francisco and whom the Youth Advisory Council had met earlier in August. Alongside Michelle, Emily helped scan mobile gala tickets to make the registration more convenient for the guests. Vivian stayed inside the venue and assisted with the silent auction, carrying an iPad around to register and answer questions. As people found their way into the main seating area, our volunteering came to an end, and we got to listen to empowering speeches and understand the work of AWS. We are extremely thankful to experience the Asian Women’s Shelter 30th Anniversary as we learned a lot and met many inspirations. The Youth Advisory Council hopes to bring back the valuable skills we learned to our own events in the future, and hopefully work with some of the inspirational people we met at the AWS gala.