Saj Golde sporting out REACHxMTD T in sunny socal!

Follow us on instagram! @reachforeducation and peep people all over the country sporting our gear. Want to be featured? Take a picture of yourself in some gear and tag us. We’ll repost it!

On October 20th at 7 PM ASA will be going to Pineville to iceskate and Fundraise for R.E.A.C.H.

Say you’re with ASA and the entry fee is $10 and for every person who says they’re with ASA, the ice rink will give $3.50 to the R.E.A.C.H. Foundation.

The address of the Ice Rink is:

http://www.facebook.com/events/229621877163253/236636159795158/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity

Make sure you visit the site and register early for a chance to win one of new t-shirts!

http://youreach2012.weebly.com/index.html

Four years ago a group of college students set out to change the world and leave a legacy. With extreme dedication and drive, this initiative became REACH. As those students transitioned into the professional world, many of them found that they could no longer put forward the time needed to be a part of REACH. However, Yi Xiang decided otherwise. Yi has tirelessly poured out his time and energy into his position of COO and in doing so has played an enormous role in the current growth of our organization. His work with our students has led REACH to a more sustainable, and tangible future. Yi recently began pursuing his MBA at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and has decided that in order to focus more on his studies he will step down form the position of COO. We at REACH would like to congratulate Yi on being admitted into such a prestigious program, and wish him the best on his journey. We are forever grateful for the great strides that you have led while here at REACH, and the impact that you have made on both the local and global community will live on.

The following paragraph will sound callous, and portray me in a horrible light, but I think it’s important for you to know in order to understand the impact R.E.A.C.H. has had on me. I’ve never been one to want to change the world. Since high school, I’ve been surrounded by peers that wanted to cure diseases, provide clean water to faraway villages, end world hunger, and other things of the like. But I just could not find the will or the passion to break away from my routine and create such positive change in the world. Now don’t get me wrong, I donated to causes and supported the fundraisers that my peers would organize, but I never felt the need to take such an active role myself. It always just seemed easier to let other people lead the charge. That being said, I was not completely devoid of all depth. I had always had interest in education and its impact on people and society. I remember watching a documentary called “Waiting for Superman” during my junior year of high school. It followed several students through the American public education system and examined the downfalls of our system from the perspective of students, teachers, and administers. It was startling to me how broken our own system was even though we have so many resources at our disposal. The movie also examined the importance of the education and the long lasting effects it has on individuals and society; education is the key to social and economic mobility. The movie also got me interested in education in poorer parts of the world. If a developed nation like American can have such a broken system, I can only imagine it in other places. But apart from reading some articles and watching some videos, my want to change the system ended there. And then along came R.E.A.C.H. It finally gave me the passion and drive to want to make a difference in the world. I already understood how important education was and how much it’s lacking in third world countries, but I just couldn’t find the means to do anything about. But hearing that R.E.A.C.H. was out there building whole schools for children was inspiring. To think that I had a tangible way to leave such a positive impact on someone was the motivation I needed. The people that were already a part of R.E.A.C.H. pushed me even more. The passion and excitement they had for the work they were doing was infectious. Through R.E.A.C.H., they had built a supportive and driven community of people who sought to really make a difference in children’s’ lives- one that would truly affect them forever. That is what drew me to R.E.A.C.H. While I have had an interest in education all these years, R.E.A.C.H. provided the passion and allowed me to wield this interest and use it to affect positive change in the world. By doing that, it has also taught me leadership skills and provided an amazing group of friends.

A lot of times we set out to do something for a specific reason. We start riding a bike because it’s cheaper than driving, we start playing the guitar because we like the way it sounds, whatever it is, we start doing it for one reason or another. Over time, as we continue this something, we can start doing it for other reasons. We’re riding a bike now because we like the exercise, we’re playing the guitar now because it grabs people’s attention.

My something is dance, I’ve always done it, and the more I learned about dance, the more I loved it. I danced because it made me happy, it made me feel good. It was something I could do with people, or by myself. To me, dance was at times, the only way I could express myself fully with out going crazy. As time passed, I found that I now dance for other reasons. I dance not only because I love it and it makes me happy, but now I can see that it makes other people happy, it allows me to travel, it allows me to meet people. It’s something that I honestly fall more and more in love with everyday. Through dance, something else started, I found that I could make a difference with it. I could actually improve someone else’s life by dancing, or getting other people together to dance. From this concept, More Than Dance started. And this became my new something. Over time, more workshops were held, and more money was raised, and more lives were being changed. But with anything, the reasons I was doing this something started to shift. Not tremendously, but adding meetings, staff, and trying to run More Than Dance as a business cloudied my reasons for doing More Than Dance. Fighting worry, doubt, longevity, and relativity became a strong reason for doing this something. And thinking about the lives we were touching and changing became less of a focus. Until I had an amazing experience at a gas station. As I was filling up my car, a kid came up to me with a little white bucket asking for a donation so he could go to Six Flags with his church. From the looks of it, I wasn’t exactly sure if this donation was going towards a trip to Six Flags or to help his family out with day to day living. Either way, I didn’t care, I was giving him a donation. So as I placed money into his little white bucket we began to talk a little bit. About what you ask? Dance of course. As we were talking, his mother came up, she was watching him from afar. This confirmed my previous notion that my donation was going towards day to day living rather then a trip to Six Flags. After his mom learned that I was a dancer, she promptly bragged about her sons own skills. I can still clearly hear her saying, “Go ahead and show him your Douggy.” Here we are, in the middle of the gas station as he dougies. We finished up our conversation, I gave them More Than Dance’s information, and we went our separate ways. But as I opened my car door, I couldn’t help but smile. It’s almost as if the sun came and wiped my clouds away. I was quickly reminded why I have More Than Dance, I was reminded why I dance. For experiences just like that. Dance allowed me to connect with a random kid at a gas station holding a little white bucket. Hopefully I made his life better in some way, but just as important, he made my life better and reminded me why I do my something. What is your something, and why do you do it?

My name is Misha Tobar and I am a junior at NC State University, studying political science. I first got involved with REACH my freshman year, through the Asian Students Association. I had heard about REACH’s mission and goals and it was definitely something I wanted to become involved with. I first began my involvement when I decided to volunteer and help plan REACH’s first youREACH conference. When I joined and attended the meetings, I found myself surrounded by very inspiring people. Andrew Poon the staff, and student leaders were all passionate people. What I love most about REACH is the passion and drive of the people you work with. Everyone is always determined and driven to make a change through REACH.
The passion that everyone exudes really inspired me and I  wanted to push myself to help make a change. What I’ve learned through REACH, is that you can take tour passions and talents and utilize it to create a local or global change. With this knowledge, I find myself to be more creative in figuring our how I can individually make a difference. While working with REACH I’ve has the amazing opportunity to work with More Than Dance, 101 Productions, and Jubilee Project. More Than Dance utilizes their dance talents to raise money for local charities, while 101 Productions and Jubilee Project use their passion for film to create awareness on certain topics and issues. I love how these groups find ways to use their talent to create a change. I think it’s really important to help people become empowered and know that anything is possible, all it takes is action. REACH is truly inspiring and teaches you how to take something you love and to create limitless possibilities for change and action.
I only hope to inspire others, the way REACH and its partners have done for me. I look forward to this years conference and teaching others about the possibilities you have to achieve any goal you seek to accomplish.

I first heard about R.E.A.C.H. from a friend and this led to meeting up with the founder, Andrew Poon. Little did I know that meeting with Andrew would open the door to great opportunities in the community and overseas.  During that time from 2011-2012, I was president of the Asian Student Association at UNC Charlotte. I’ve been part of ASA since my freshmen year of college and wanted to see something new happening in ASA – allowing members to make a difference in the community and overseas. Having the same thought as me, my Vice President, Vikram Matange (Also the co-representative of R.E.A.C.H. from 2011-2012) and I pursued this notion. This is how I became part of R.E.A.C.H. This is how UNC Charlotte became part of R.E.A.C.H.

As the R.E.A.C.H. Charlotte representative and relaying information to the ASA, R.E.A.C.H. has offered me the opportunity to practice my leadership skills as well and becoming part of something big. In the past, ASA would raise money for club events in order for members to have fun. With R.E.A.C.H. in mind ASA was able to host events and raise money for a better cause while having fun. Specifically we were raising money to help build schools overseas. Our very first event was an ice skating event where we raised $255.62. Needless to say we were proud.
Raising money is essential for keeping an organization alive, but I find Asian American leadership and education much more important, if not more.  Growing up in the United States very few Asian American leaders come to mind; I think this is going to change rapidly within years. R.E.A.C.H. is more that just building schools overseas – creating and building student leaders is just another aspect. During my term as President I feel confident enough to say that I helped build potential leaders to ensure that R.E.A.C.H will stay strong in the Charlotte community specifically at UNC Charlotte. R.E.A.C.H has helped me become what I like to consider a better student leader than I could have ever been as well as allowing me to help release the potential in others in terms of leadership.

With leadership, education is a must. The responsibility of leaders is educating to others what you intend on doing and why it is important. Education is a powerful tool and I believe R.E.A.C.H. does a great job in addressing this issue by building schools overseas so children will be educated as well as promoting leadership to expand education; the more education in the world, the better. As you can tell, I believe leadership and education go hand in hand and with these set of tools, the world has the potential to be a better place.

Although school is still out for the summer the REACH team has been as busy as ever. With what?

1. Last month our CEO, Andrew Poon, traveled to Hue, Vietnam to help finish building, and attend the opening ceremony for, our newest project. To check pictures from the trip visit this link: http://www.reachforeducation.com/media/hue-vietnam/

2. Students from across the state of North Carolina have been working hard to prepare youREACH2012, but we still need your help financially! We want to bring out students the very best program possible so any contribution helps! To make a donation visit: http://www.gofundme.com/wsnus

3. On top of that, we have been working hard on new programs to help students who have a passion for the arts get involved. This fall we will be launching a program which will target great potential in the arts. We will also be launching our sales department this fall! So stay tuned, because there are a lot of exciting things coming down the pipeline!

Hello REACHers,

In order to provide students with a chance to step up to the plate and lead their peers, we are currently taking applications for student led workshops at this year’s conference. The conference will be on September 22nd at UNC-Chapel Hill. If you, someone you know, or a group of people want to lead a workshop, please fill out the application at the link below.

The deadline for applications is Monday, July 30.

Application