Generous Awards Make Outstanding Young Houston Students’ Dreams of Studying in Taiwan Come True -Ministry of Education Republic of China (Taiwan)

Generous Awards Make Outstanding Young Houston Students’ Dreams of Studying in Taiwan Come True

Date: 2014-12-12

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Generous Awards Make Outstanding Young Houston Students’ Dreams of Studying in Taiwan Come True

The Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston initiated a scholarship fundraising project to give disadvantaged students more educational opportunities. It invited several successful Taiwanese entrepreneurs living in Houston to sponsor the study expenses and round-trip air tickets for outstanding students from low-income families at Houston Independent School District’s Sharpstown International High School to go on a study trip to Taiwan.

The initiative received a very positive response. William Yeh, a former commissioner of Taiwan’s Overseas Community Affairs Council; John Chen and Kenneth Li, the current chairman and former chairman of the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston respectively; James and Leeshan Birney, the founders and owners of Stone Mountain Properties; Dawn Lin, an attorney with Fidelity National Title Agency Inc.; and Mei Fong, the China Airlines Marketing Manager in Houston all gave this educational initiative their generous support and sponsorship.

A scholarship award luncheon was held on Friday, December 12, 2014 to recognize these philanthropists and to give the scholarship recipients an opportunity to meet them and personally thank them.

Greg Meyers, an Education Board Trustee; Rick Cruz, an Assistant Superintendent for the Houston Independent School District; the Sharpstown International High School principal, Ms. Thuy Le-Thai; the deputy principal, Ping Yu Adams, and Chinese language teacher, Junrui Garcia also attended to express their gratitude and appreciation for the support of students of Chinese language studies at the school. Two outstanding students, Loi Quoc Lao and Gabriel Omar Castillo, were selected from 300 applicants to receive the awards. During the luncheon they expressed their thanks in English and in Chinese, which they have been learning for just one year.

The award speaks for the collaborative efforts between the educators and these far-sighted entrepreneurs, and most importantly, it was a chance to celebrate the hard work of these two hardworking young students’ and wish them well on this next exciting step in their language learning journey.