kenmore alexandra alexandria. i'm pat lawson muse. during the month of may we celebrate and observe asian-american pacific islander heritage. we also join our corporate partners to help support nonprofits whose work is making a difference in our community. this morning on "viewpoint" we'd like to fouk focus on two groups that are making a big difference in our community. joining me now su chung, executive director of asian lead and janet land is program lead luminous. welcome to viewpoint. >> thank you for having us. >> like to start with you. last week an unprecedented event in washington.

nearly 2,000 government officials and community leaders gathered at george washington university for first white house summit on pacific islanders. yours is a growing voice. >> a growing population. a lot of efforts to grow into the population and white house is part of that giving asian americans a voice in our country and feature unique tal enand skill sets our community is bringing for. >> an how about here in the washington community? >> i grew up in a low in come area in washington, d.c. my family came here when i was six years old. we struggled. we fought all the challenges. growing up i wished there was a program like asian-american youth to help other kids not have the same struggles i did. i've seen a huge difference. i've seen the young people we

help. they are just growing and have a better understanding of their identity and also taking a lot of leadership roles. >> would you agree with florida? >> i would agree with that. helped me come to terms with my culture identity september 11th getting past the myth of model minorities. i think a lot of people believe the stereotype that asians are the model minority we're good at math we excel in all academics. but in reality, some of us are not good at math. some of us are not that great. just like everyone else we try hard at what we do and trying to make it in the world. >> your group supports low income and underserved youth. describe the programs you provide for them. >> we focus on low in come in the region d.c. montgomery

county and fair falk county. after school programs summer school programs and mentoring programs from pre-k to grade 12. we focus on educational empowerment, identity and leadership. for these three areas really talked about when aig americans are not the model minority in all cases and when kids need help with understanding how to get ahead in school, parents don't speak english, working at a job, people don't see you as a leader how do you deal with these things and become confident in yourself. >> you touched on a few of those issues. what would you say the biggest issue you and your friends deal with. >> one of the biggest issues me and people around me face is that sometimes we're not taken seniorsly by the rest of the world because there's a stigma

that asian americans are quiet and we don't really have a voice. the asian-american community, our voice is growing. one thing people my age are trying to fight for us to kind of display your presence in the world. we're not quiet. we have a presence and, like everyone else we're not peter in the world. like everyone else we're trying to go to school go to work get a job, support parents. we're trying to make it. >> just like average teens. >> yes. i mean i have my kids growing up and it's really a lot of challenges out there for all children i think when you have the two cultures american ways and traditional asian ways there's a lot that i even see my

kids struggling with. i think one of the best things american youth can do we help those kids support them by coaching them and being there for them. sometimes you go home and try to talk to your mom and dad, when i was growing up and tried to talk to my mom and dad, they didn't understand what was happening in this american world. they didn't have a clue. being able to go somewhere they understand makes a difference. >> we're going to take a break. when we come back we'll talk about asian-american pacific islander heritage. stay with us.

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welcome back. we're talking about asian pacific, asian-american pacific islander. what are your most popular programs? >> three programs after school summer programs and mentoring programs. we're serving nearly 400 youth this year. we're serving k through 12 as i mentioned. focus areas are education, leadership. we're helping them think about what they want their goals are, not the pressures that exist, stereotypes that come from them. trying to build activities.

they are making decisions about what they want to do. >> what are the ages of the youth that participate and is there a fee for your services your programs? >> there's no fee. we are free. we have programs that are pre-k through 12. we go all the way from young kids to youth helping them get to college. >> janet, you're in college, how has it helped you? >> i'm currently a student at george mason. i've been -- i was part for six years. it has helped me learn to embrace not only my american side about you where i come from my origins of i'm chinese, chinese american specifically. aalead helped me not only accept my culture but embrace that i'm living in america. alead taught me leadership skills which i apply being involved in the local student organizations at my university. and currently i'm a part of a

startup group called ican enter college ate collegiate chinese american network. through alead i have a lifelong relationship with my mentor and many others. >> so this group has really made all the difference for you? >> i believe so. i think that programs like these really do help youth develop as a human being and professionally. it just teaches you a lot of life skills that i think without alead i wouldn't have known before. before alead, i wasn't particularly passionate about anything. but after joining alead, i think i've become really interested in asian-american politics. i help people more like donate

to organizations. i help at the soup kitchen whenever i can. >> you're making a big impact. >> thank you. >> you've got a big dinner on the 3rd of june. tell us about it. >> it's our 16th annual dinner slr springs civic center. check out our website. we are welcoming everyone come out and celebrate with us and help us make a difference. just in case you can't come. there are ralph tickets and you need not be present to win. the prizes are awesome, the apple iwatch ipad season tickets with food and parking. >> that sounds exciting especially the apple watch. >> i just got it yesterday and it is very cool. >> you can get more information about the dinner and will about the organization at the website that you'll see there on the your green. >> siu, what is it others need to know about asian pacific

islanders in this country and what is the message you'd like to leave with our viewers this morning. >> yes, i'd like for everyone to know asian pacific islander community is very, very broad. we have in our program 16 different asian countries represented. we are not all the same people. we have a lot of different traditions and backgrounds. we do have low income people among us that need additional services. there are ways to help. we need volunteers to make our program run, financial support to serve young people like janet and other young people who help serve the community. >> jim handly and siu, it's an interesting story how you met and the thing you had in common. >> at a similar program in d.c. two years ago, that was the first time we met. and siu was talking on the phone. i noticed that she spoke the

same language that my grandparents speak to me. it's from a province in the southern region of china. i was like hey, we speak the same language. to me it's just amazing that even in in a community this big, the world is so small. everybody kind of knows each other one way or another. it was amazing. >> yeah. so i always tease with her and say you're like my sister because our families are both from the same village in china. so it was exciting. i watched janet blossom from that two years ago to just really now a college student. i'm so proud of her. >> thank you. >> all right. thank you so much for sharing these insights with us this morning. we encourage people again to attend the dinner to sign up for it and learn more about it. june 3rd. >> june 3rd. we want to see all of you there. >> thank you so much sei chchlt

heung and executive director of the group. janet, good luck to you. >> thank you. >> we wish you well in your endeavors. >> thank you. >> coming up next a group bringing health and hope to those in need. stay with us. we'll be right back.

looking for one of these? yoplait. smooth, creamy, and craved by the whole family. the mission of hope for tomorrow provide infrastructure build out and educational opportunities. joining us lu nguyen dr. fung president of hope for tomorrow and we have outreach marketing director for hope for tomorrow. thank you all for joining us.

doctor you're based in rock hill and you started out 10 years ago with a small group of friends who got together for a service project. tell us more about that. >> a small group of friends who volunteer and most of them already with the volunteer in the past and time for them. they appreciate that whatever we have in this country as japanese american and we think it's time for us to give back to the community we are also 100% volunteer based. in the past two years we have provided at least five missions of the local patients in washington, d.c. metro area.

provide completely free prenatal care for the patient in need those that would not have that service. >> dr. nguyen that has been your service for the last two, providing dental services for those who couldn't get it. >> yes. >> tell us about that. >> thanks to our friends we are able usually at the dental office patient has to come. we sit down and think how do we provide, bring help to people in the community. we able to build a local unit that made from the chair and beyond take to the local business who are carpenters who build a mobile unit purchase small equipment we put in there and transport and set up and

bring the help we can provide. >> talking about the mobile unit that takes the dental care to community who need it churches temples, community centers. how often do these clinics take place? >> we had five of these clinics over the past two years. this year we have five. on the average we plan to do one event each quarter. the next one we have is july 11th in sterling, virginia and two more scheduled in the fall of this year. one of them will be in montgomery county the other will be in virginia. the date and location will be determined later. >> how many people find out about the clinics and is there any charge for the services? >> no. the charge is actually completely free to the people and it's for the disadvantaged families in the area. the word how we get it out, word

of mouth and friends and different profit organizations that help us get the word out. one thing maybe nbc 4 do for us help us get the word out as well. we can get a lot more publicity on these events. we'll be able to provide further support, more support to the people in need of dental services. >> yes. there are an awful lot of people who don't have dental insurance, dr. nguyen. how much do you generally serve? >> it's about 150 to 400 people we serve in one day. >> per clinic. >> per clinic. >> also currently hope for tomorrow clinic once every quarter. we wish we could do more than that. but that's what we can do right now. actually two years ago and first mission we were able to provide services for 200 patients but the more recent one we were able to provide more than 400 people.

>> and the services are free. >> 100% free. >> we understand all of your staff is volunteer. >> absolutely. >> and you need more volunteers. >> yes. thanks to our circle of friends so far that we're able to have some service. but in order to expand and continue our mission, we do need assistants official resource from the community to build better community. volunteers are the key to our success. volunteer like korean writer help us connect, apply for government funds, corporation can fundus to buy materials, equipment, because we 100% free. so we used up resources to have. >> you need volunteers and funds. >> yes. >> more supplies to clean people's teeth and fill their

cavities. >> exactly. >> we're talking hope for tomorrow. we'll continue our conversation on "viewpoint" right after a quick break.

>> welcome back. we're talking with hope for tomorrow which provides dental assistance to those who don't have it. lieu you collaborate with a lot of organizations. >> we do. clab reagan is definitely a must because it helps allow us to do more share resources as well as maximizing the resources we have. for example one of the organizations we collaborate with vietnam medical society and northeast america. what we do with them is together we put together a health fair. at that health fair we provide free dental services that was

cleaning, filling, extractions. on the medical side free health screening, check sugar level, blood pressure bone density. we also provide medical consultation to the people as well. all of this is free for the people in the northern virginia area d.c. maryland area. >> dr. nguyen in the coming years you'll be sponsoring a challenge. what kind of challenge? >> we plan to host more frequent dental cleanings across the board of northern virginia. the challenge here is because every state, virginia has a different guideline, maryland has a different guideline. so we do need attorney to help us legal advice to stay within the guideline and for the government of maryland from the state of maryland of virginia to give us more freedom in order to move there, expand across north virginia. >> dr. phan tell us about your

elderly project. >> yes. help for tomorrow currently is evaluating the program that we can bring to them the services to the elderly in nursing home who could not have access to dental services. so we are very excited, but learn more about that. >> already. very exciting. very much needed. good dental care is important to our overall health. thank you so much dr. chchlt huong, miss lieu nguyen and dr. thi nguyen. if you would like to help you'll see the website on the screen. thank you for getting up and staying with us. "news 4 today" is next.

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"news 4 today" starts now. >> right now 6:00. police need your help identifying this person of interest. they want to question this man in a quadruple murder in the district. >> police arrest a man in connection with that double murder in montgomery county. where they track the guy down. good morning, everyone. it is sunday may 17th i'm angie goff. >> welcome to "news 4 today," i'm david culver. let's start off with a check on the rain. >> quite the rumble yesterday. a chance for more rain today, chuck? >> you betcha. today pretty much a carbon copy of yesterday. many dry hours to get out