27 May 2014 - The Vietnamese American Community in Massachusetts (VACM) is the latest donor to the Build A Shelter Project (BASP) of the Filipino American community in the US Northeast.

On May 17, VAMC gave Philippine Consul General Mario De Leon, Jr. a check amounting to 3,500 USD, payable to the Philippine Jesuit Foundation (PJF), during his visit to Dorchester, Boston, where many Vietnamese Americans reside.

The Consul General took time to meet with the VACM members to personally thank them for the $25,000 donation that they gave last year to the LingkodsaKapwa Pilipino (Lingkapil) Program of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO).  VACM gave the donation to the Pilipino American Association of New England (PAMAS) which remitted it to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO).

At the meeting with VACM, which PAMAS helped arrange, Consul General De Leon briefed the Vietnamese Americans on the impact of typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), the Reconstruction Assistance on Yolanda, and the latest developments on BASP.

In response to the Consul General’s presentation, the Vietnamese Americans highlighted the friendly ties between the Philippines and Vietnam. Some attendees disclosed that they actually lived for some time in the Philippine Refugee Processing Center in the province of Bataan before they came to the U.S.  According to them, they were grateful to the Philippines because it became home to an estimated 300,000 “boat people” from Vietnam who passed through or lived for some time in Bataan when the Vietnamese started to leave their country as a result of the political turbulence in the mid-1970s.