Letter from the President

Dear Friends,

My name is Theresa Tran and I am excited to be writing to you as Messengers of Love’s president. As the Holiday season and the year 2019 come to an end, on behalf of Messengers of Love (MOL) and its board, I would like to wish you a Happy New Year. As a supporter, you are an integral part in helping MOL achieves its mission. I would like to thank you for your support of MOL.

This year marks the 15th anniversary since Messengers of Love started its operation in 2004. I have had many wonderful experiences working with this organization and its people and I feel honored to be able to serve it in this role. MOL’s mission is to provide the disadvantaged children of Vietnam an improved quality of live and future through our various programs where we meet the children’s needs: physical, emotional, spiritual, and educational. MOL encourages the children that it helped to reach out and help another child to become successful, as they have been helped. In the 15 years time frame, I have seen the organization grown from a handful of friends dedicated to helping the orphaned, poor, and disadvantaged of Vietnam, to an organization that has over the years positively impacted thousands of lives, improving the lives of many poor and orphaned children and helping them to be successful in life. Without the countless volunteer hours and financial support of our members, volunteers and generous donors, Messengers of Love would not have been able to make the positive impact that it did. And for that, I am very grateful and thankful for their generosities and kindness.

As you may already know, most of MOL’s officers and board members are in the professional fields, working as Engineer, Accountants, Medical Doctor or University Professors. They each are dedicated to the goal and mission of the organization. They are personally responsible for overseeing its programs/services. They themselves are also major donors and sponsors for MOL’s programs. Each year, MOL’s president and some of the board members travel to Vietnam to oversee/assess its programs and also volunteer to teach in our Summer School program as well visit orphanages and giving gifts and scholarships.

I am happy to announce that MOL once again has been approved to be included in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) list for the year 2019 – 2020 where federal employees can donate toward it through payroll deduction. This is the 8th year that MOL was approved to be part of CFC. Also in August 2019, we were chosen to receive the support award from the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (UNAVSA). Vietnamese Student Associations (VSA) in North America and Canada will be supporting, campaigning and fundraising for MOL exclusively this coming year. Needless to say, I am very grateful that MOL was chosen as the recipient for this award. It will give us an opportunity to work closely with young adults from over the USA in advancing philanthropy goals and in achieving our mission.

Current Programs and Services updates

Messengers of Love is continuously evolving its programs to adapt to changing circumstances and to improve the depth of care we provide. Our five main areas of support have been very fruitful and we thank you for helping us make this possible.

1) Education Support: through our Scholarships for a Poor Student, Free English and Computer Class, Virtual Online Class programs

2) Spiritual, Emotional and Physical Health Support: through our Christmas Care Package, Sponsor a Child, Meals for the Poor (Quán Cơm Nhân Ái), and Medical Missions & Services programs

3) Environment and Safety Support: through our Building a New Home for the Poor, Orphanages and School remodeling, and Clean Water Systems programs programs

4) Youth Character Development: Provide opportunities and encourage youth both in the USA and in Vietnam to join MOL and participate in MOL’s programs and create and be active in philanthropist projects of their own.

5) Special Projects: Provided based on donor’s special request.

We are happy to report that in the last 15 years, with the support of many, MOL was able to accomplish the following:

• Orphans, poor children, lepers, hospital patients and poor adults from 29 villages and 30 orphanages in Vietnam, including 2 orphanages in Cambodia and India have received a total of 43,750 Holiday Care Packages including food, rice, milk, new clothes, toiletries, blanket (for flood victims) toys (for the children).
• Christmas Care Package were given to 1850 adults and children who suffered from the floods in Central Vietnam.
• Lunar New Year food and gifts were given to 600 elderlies at the Home for the Elders of Vung Tau Vietnam.
• New Year gifts which included rice, noodles, sugar, cooking oil, and other daily essentials were given to 1500 poor and handicapped families of Kontum and Pleiku.
• New Year gifts, meals, soap, blankets, and other essentials were given to130 ex-lepers (“nguoi cui”) and their children in Kontum.

• 1550 scholarships were given to the poor children in need. 31 students have graduated from college and are currently working. 19 are currently enrolled in college.
• Provide school uniforms for 900 children of Pleiku and Suoi Thong of Da Lat.

• Found sponsors/adoptive parents for 35 orphans.
• Sponsored and provided tuition and boarding scholarship for 5 orphaned girls from St Joseph Orphanage to attend the Vietnamese American Private High School (Nam My HS) in Saigon.

• Over 4000 meals were served to poor village children via “meal for a child” program and to poor hospital patients at our “Quán Cơm Nhân Ái” charity restaurant.

• MOL held two Medical missions, one last year and one this year, where teams of medical doctors and nurses served and treated over 100 patients each time.
• Mobile clinic and housing for patients were bought for patients from remote villages to stay close to city hospital. Thousands of patients were given nutritious meals, supplements and medicine.
• MOL partnered with major US hospitals and brought 3 handicapped and orphaned children to the USA for medical operations. One is adopted by MOL’s president Theresa Tran and currently attending UT Austin. Two had returned to Vietnam, is working in Saigon, one is enrolled in college.

• MOL had provided safe shelter for many families and children. We built a total of 52 new homes for 52 families
• Built a house for blind people of Hue

• MOL rebuilt and remodeled 3 run down village schools, built 3 new dining halls for three rural schools, expanded two village roads for safe bicycling, remodeled 1 run down orphanage.

• MOL dug 22 wells for poor villages and built 7 clean water systems to serve 7 villages.

• Each summer since 2018, over 800 underprivileged and ethic minority children of Vietnam, age range: 7 - 18 from 8 villages in north and central Vietnam were taught English and various school subjects, Character Building, Workforce skills, were provided role model, hope and vision through its newly implemented Summer School Program.

• Our Virtual Class website is currently being built with complete tools and lessons required to successfully teach online via the Internet. Audio/video equipment for our first class had been purchased and delivered to Vietnam and plan for installation is within the next month. We plan to open our first class in Thanh Hoa by the end of January 2020.

• Assisted funding for one acre of cashew farm for the ethnic people of Kontum.
• Remodeled a run down church in a small village of North Vietnam.
• End of School Year picnic and outings for 75 children from 2 orphanages.
• “Trung Thu” (“Mid Autumn Moon Festival”) gifts for 125 children from three orphanages

• There is a Messengers of Love Youth group that consists of over 50 High School students’ members in Houston. This group has been working on fundraising and volunteering to help MOL toward achieving its mission for the last 8 years.
• There are currently two Messengers of Love Youth groups in Vietnam, one in Central and one in North Vietnam. They have projects of their own implemented in their own villages such as giving food to the poor during Tet, visiting the disables, etc.

• As of 2019, MOL has been approved to be included in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) list for consecutive 8 year.
• In August 2019, MOL was chosen to receive the support award from the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (UNAVSA). Vietnamese Student Associations (VSA) in North America and Canada will be supporting, campaigning and fundraising for MOL exclusively this coming year.

• MOL held a total of 9 Christmas charity galas and attended many festivals and community gatherings to raise funds and awareness about MOL’s programs and services.

• Each year, MOL’s president and some of the board members travel to Vietnam to oversee/assess its programs and also volunteer to teach in our Summer School program as well visit orphanages and giving gifts and scholarships.
• Messengers of Love members have made a total of 21 trips to Vietnam to visit the orphans and the poor, and to oversee the building and remodeling of schools and orphanages. Our local Vietnam Messengers of Love group also makes many trips per year to the poor and handicapped in various locations throughout Vietnam to give food, gifts and medicine.

• Besides helping the orphans, the poor and the handicapped of Vietnam, we regularly serve the local community in Houston, Texas by visiting nursing home, feed the homeless, providing Christmas gifts for the homeless and the poor children, and volunteering in charity organizations and projects.

New Programs and Services

Messengers of Love always strives to make our services even more effective by continuously assessing the needs of the people we serve, focusing in on areas with critical needs and adding services that increase the value of our programs. Thus, we have added three new programs recently:

• Started in 2018, Summer School for Vietnamese and ethnic minority children
• Started in 2019, Medical mission to Vietnam
• Started in 2019, Virtual Online Classes to teach children English, Work Skills and Character building using technology such as the internet and computer.

Summer School Program: : Over 800 underprivileged and ethic minority children of Vietnam, age range: 7 - 18 from 8 villages in north and central Vietnam were taught English, various school subjects, Character Building, Workforce skills, provided role model, hope and vision. All children attended free of charge. The ethnic minority children also receive free daily breakfast and lunch. These classes are taught by volunteers from both the US and Vietnam who are given the opportunity to experience the rewards of teaching and engage in the joys of cultural exchanges. This past summer 2019, a total of 9 volunteer teachers traveled to Vietnam to teach in this program. Most of the children in the Kontum villages cannot speak Vietnamese and have a difficult time at the mainstream school. We help by teaching the Vietnamese language and through intensive tutoring in different classroom subjects. MOL provided teachers, classroom equipment and furniture, school supplies, laptops, as well as breakfast and lunch for the children. The results exceeded our expectation in that the students were eager to learn and made significant progress in all areas.

Our “Medical Mission” program was successfully added with our first Medical mission trip made in May 2019 where teams of doctors and nurses from both the USA and Vietnam provided free treatment and medical services to over 100 poor patients who traveling from various villages to the clinic in Saigon. A mobile clinic was purchased in 2019 to provide medical services to those who are homebound and cannot travel. Medicine and nutritious food and supplements were given to over 2500 patients this past year alone.

Our Virtual Class website is currently being built with complete tools and lessons required to successfully teach online via the Internet. Audio/video equipment for our first class had been purchased and delivered to Vietnam and plan for installation is within the next month. We plan to open our first class in Thanh Hoa by the end of January 2020.

Volunteer and Contribution Opportunity:

Currently we are in the process of fundraising and recruiting volunteers to teach for summer 2020 and online. Please help us provide this much needed educational boost to this neglected group of children by making a donation to support this essential program. An application for volunteering as well as volunteering requirements can be accessed on our website. Please spread the word for this volunteering opportunity and consider a donation to Messengers of Love to support this program. You can do one or more of the following:

• Volunteer to teach for the Summer School project in Vietnam
• Volunteer to teach online/virtual class using Skype or Zoom to help teach during the school year.
• Introduce our project to other communities
• Help recruit qualified volunteer teachers
• Become a big brother and big sister
• Donate

Thank You for Your Support

Without your vital support this charity could not succeed in its mission. Thanks again for being a part of the Messengers of Love family and I look forward to working with you in serving the needs of the less fortunate of Vietnam and I hope you will have a wonderful New Year.

MOL President