By Sophie Xu
On May 24, 2026 on a day with auspicious weather the CYOC donation drive started. The passionate CYOC volunteers arrived as early as 9:00 am to help set up tables, banners and donation stations before the event began. Soon as people arrived, all volunteers warmly led them to the correct drop-off areas and clearly coordinated responsibilities with one another. The entire process was organized with effort and care, with sign-in tables and clear donation records. As more and more people arrived, the donations soon formed a huge pile of bags, clothes, books, toys, baby strollers, and school supplies. Every volunteer was dedicated to their task, with all early a CYOC shirt a unified and welcoming atmosphere was created. The volunteer’s enthusiasm encouraged many people to stop by and help contribute and support.
The consistent commitment of the volunteers was clearly portrayed throughout the event, whenever a new car arrived, volunteers quickly gathered and worked together to unload and organize the donations. After finishing arranging the items, the volunteers eagerly waited for the next group of donors and repeated the process with efficiency.
CYOC has had a long history of organizing community events such as donation drives. CYOC has been partners with So What Else since 2023 to support local communities through a range of projects. Initiated by Ruichen R. Feng and George Wang, CYOC members have participated in many important initiatives, including organizing donation drives, volunteering at food distribution sites, supporting the MoCo CARES Charity Race, participating in holiday festivals, and providing bilingual Chinese-English translation assistance. Notably in 2024 alone, CYOC collected over 8,000 items during the Summer Donation Drive and more than 5,000 items during the Fall Donation Drive.
With this current exciting donation drive, after a morning of hard work by around 11:40 am, the So What Else truck finally arrived to pick up the donations. The CYOC volunteers immediately worked together to carefully load countless bags, toys, clothes and supplies onto the truck. Everyone worked with a big smile on their face, proud of their accomplishment. As the truck quickly filled up, the CYOC volunteers and So What Else staff were all satisfied and especially grateful towards the community’s support and generosity. Watching the truck leave with so many donations was a meaningful representation of the volunteers’ hard work and compassion will help the families in need. In the end just with about 2 hours of collection CYOC was able to collect countless items, notably collecting 125 pairs of shoes in this short period of time.
The success of this donation drive would not have been possible without the support of volunteers, families, community partners, and donors. CYOC truly appreciates everyone’s continuous support through contributions. With kindness, teamwork, and service, CYOC helps to continue to organize events as such to help build and foster a more strong community. With all the success CYOC is looking forward to the next donation drive.
Website Editor: Grace Yan
华府青年 CYOC 
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