Pasadena, CA – On August 17st, 2017, CAUSE hosted the 2017 Alumni Reception at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center.
Kim Yamasaki, Executive Director of CAUSE, welcomed familiar faces to the CAUSE Alumni Reception. The Alumni Reception allowed CAUSE program alumni and participants the opportunity to connect with each other outside of their respective programs.
Adam Ma, CAUSE Boardmember and Community Relations & External Affairs at SoCalGas, stressed the importance of empowering the APA community through leadership programs like CAUSE’s Leadership Academy and Political Institute. Programs like the Leadership Academy manifest from the hard work and contributions of others. He encouraged the graduating interns to seize valuable learning opportunities as they prepare to go out and to change the world.
After attendees arrived, John Yi, Policy Director at the American Lung Association, delivered a keynote highlighting the importance of bringing marginalized communities together during divisive times. He demonstrated this sentiment by presenting a question he feels has been rapidly more apparent among social media: “What can the API community do? What is our responsibility? And it’s an interesting question if you think about it; it’s interesting because it requires the solution to be a collective response.”
Following the inspirational keynote, everyone was invited to participate in a game of networking bingo. Each attendee was given a blank bingo sheet and asked to find other attendees to fill up each box based on shared traits or experiences. This activity allowed players to connect naturally and quickly throughout the evening. Winners had their bingo sheets entered into a raffle for gift cards at the end of the event.
The evening came to a close as attendees took and shared photos with old and new friends. We’d like to thank everyone who came out to the reception and for their continued support of CAUSE!