AsianConnections Salutes Our Community Leaders

Many people are involved behind the scenes to help make CHSA's events and new museum in San Francisco a great success. Ms.Gerrye Wong, author of the biographies of this year's CHSA "Aerospace to Cyberspace 2001" award recipients is an example of someone that is working tirelessly to help our community.

Gerrye Wong

Gerrye Wong's greatest pride comes when calling herself a "community volunteer" because she feels there is no greater reward in life than serving the community and helping tend its needs These are not just idle words to her as she has given of her time and energies to many Asian American projects and organizations in her lifetime.

Aside from co-chairing the 1997 Miss Chinatown U.S.A. Fashion Show celebrating Chinese New Year in San Francisco, for the past two years this fourth generation Chinese American led a major capital building fund campaign for the Chinese Historical Society of America which raised over $350,000 towards the establishment of a museum of Chinese American history in the heart of San Francisco's Chinatown.

In 1991, an organization she co-founded, the Chinese Historial and Cultural Project of Santa Clara County, built a replica of a historic Chinese temple, established it into a museum of Chinese American history, and gifted it to the city of San Jose to be a part of the S. J. Historical Museum park.

Since that time, she is proud that her efforts have been rewarded by the knowledge that over 5000 visitors and school children have learned about the history of Chinese Americans through visiting the Ng Shing Gung museum. The CHCP, under her leadership, presented San Jose's first Chinese Summer Festival iln 1992, an event which has continued as an annual all day festival visited by more than 10,000 patrons each year. In October, 1997, Gerrye co-chaired the CHCP's First Inaugural Dragon Ball to commemorate the group's 10th Anniversary of serving of the community.

Professionally, she taught elementary school for 30 years, authored a curriculum guide on Chinese American Festivals and Folklore and presented classroom programs on Chinese culture as a traveling consultant. Since 1980, she has been a columnist for San Francisco-based English language newspaper, Asian Week and a Canadian magazine, Chinatown News. In 1995, she was honored by the Organization of Chinese Americans of Santa Clara County for her Volunteerism. On Mother's Day, 1006, she was named "
Model Mother of the Year" by the Chinese Women's Association of America.

Most recently in her continuing role as a community servant, she authored a book "Eternal Spring" chronicling the lives of 30 immigrant senior citizens whose lives were enriched by Self-Help for the Elderly, a social service organization serving the needs of immigrant Asian American seniors for the past 30 years.

A retirement hobby is leading tours all over the world in her spare time as a professional travel agent. She has served as past president of Chi Am Circle, a women's social service organization she helped found 30 years ago and Self-Help for the Elderly of Santa Clara County. She is a Trustee for the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project, a member of the Self-Help for the Elderly of Santa Clara County Board, and was appointed in 1995 to the Santa Clara County Senior Care Commission.

Married to retired businessman, Calvin Wong, she is the mother of two, Dr. Michael Wong and Kelly Matsuura, and enjoys her new role as grandmother of four grandsons and one granddaughter.