MOST OUTSTANDING CULTURAL PROGRAM NOMINEE
University of New Orleans Vietnamese American Student Association
Paper Lantern Night
Describe the cultural program and how it meets the mission and goals of the organization. Details MUST include: Date of event, number of participants, program purpose (i.e. goals and objectives), member involvement, use of resources, and marketing techniques.
UNO VASA's annual cultural event, Paper Lantern Night, occurred on September 6th, 2019. There were roughly 200 people in attendance that evening, including the 45 people made up of e-board members, general members, volunteers, UNO staff, and alumni that were involved with running and executing the event. The purpose of Paper Lantern Night is to show college students' interpretation of the traditional Vietnamese festival, Tet Trung Thu, celebrated in many parts of the world, as a way of keeping our culture alive and paying special homage to our parents, ancestors, and country's history. Tet Trung Thu is well-known among the Chinese-Vietnamese community for having lots of delicious food, performers singing or dancing on a stage, and a spectacular lion dance followed by fireworks as a grand finale. Our members offered their time to help set up the venue, take pictures and videos, serve food to the attendees, and take down the decorations and clean up at the end of the night. We used several different resources to carry out the event successfully, which included asking other organizations on campus to help fund Paper Lantern Night, going out and seeking sponsorships, and asking our general members and others to volunteer or help in some way. For marketing, we chose to announce Paper Lantern Night on Facebook and Instagram two months before the day it was scheduled for, so people would get word of it early, and consistently posted about it leading up to September 6th. We strived to promote weekly, if not daily, so our posts would appear at the top of our followers' feed more often. Near the day of Paper Lantern Night, we would post a daily countdown, so people would know how close it was getting. We also printed out and posted flyers promoting it all over UNO's campus, made a Facebook event page for it, and posted about it on UNO's Social App.
How did this cultural program serve the campus and/or community?
Paper Lantern Night serves as a means for all people, both Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese alike, to come and appreciate the value of Vietnamese culture. It also allows a space for people from all different backgrounds and brings them together in one place to enjoy delicious food, socialize, and delight in various performances. It is a very welcoming event, and most importantly, anyone who attends feels a highly inclusive and lively atmosphere. Furthermore, Paper Lantern Night also acts as a Privateer Plunge event for first years at UNO. Privateer Plunge is a system that requires them to attend events during the first several weeks of their semester.
Did the organization overcome any challenges that arose while planning and implementing the cultural program/event? How?
We faced quite a few challenges while planning, which included finding the funds to secure a venue for the event, having enough space, and acquiring enough sponsors, food, and performers. We also had trouble seeking an individual to borrow good-quality speakers. At the start of the year, there was only $200 in our treasury, so we needed to reach out and ask multiple resources for funding. For the venue, there is a building on UNO's campus previous e-boards used to hold Paper Lantern Night for the last several years. We decided to keep ours at the same place this year, but we discovered that the venue increased its price for booking, and we did not have the funds to pay for it. We eventually overcame our finance issue after contacting an organization on UNO's campus to finance booking the venue. After the location was secured, we quickly remembered a problem that occurred the year before: the space used was too small. The building offered two floors for usage, but every year, Paper Lantern Night was only held on the first floor and outside. We asked the coordinator in charge of booking the event about how we could fix the issue, and he informed us we could use both floors for more space. Later on, we encountered the problem of having a lack of sponsors, food, and performers. We decided as an E-Board, we needed to go out and reach out to as many establishments as we could. We encouraged each person to emphasize the need for food, but we would greatly appreciate any means of other donations. With everyone's diligent perseverance, we were able to obtain 20 sponsorships from various restaurants, families, and individuals. Because of the lack of performers, we also did the same method of reaching out. We encouraged past performers to come back and new performers to perform as it would be a great occasion for them to demonstrate their talent. Lastly, we had difficulty finding good-quality speakers to use at the event. The venue already offered us microphones and mic stands, but we needed to supply the speakers. Yet again, we relied on the most dependable solution: reaching out and asking people. We eventually obtained two high-quality speakers for the event this way.
Additional Comments.
This was our proudest achievement this year. We really wanted to start off the year with a banger, and we wanted to pour all of our efforts into making our biggest annual event the best it could be. Our e-board actually spent 4 months planning for Paper Lantern Night, and every e-board and general member, volunteer, and staff involved with planning, setting up the day of, and helping in any way made it all the more worthwhile. There were so many people involved with making Paper Lantern Night as amazing as it was this year, and we're extremely grateful for every ounce of help we had that day. Our entire E-Board also shotgunned Red Bull before the start of the event because we were that nervous and excited and wanted to have as much energy as possible. We also have a small clip to show ~200 of the attendees that came: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ggmiaIexcyJEKDDKj5X5nqYzTBuYmTYE/view?usp=sharing.
All in all, our eboard is really grateful for everyone who had a hand in making Paper Lantern Night as amazing and fun as it was, and we are so proud of how well it turned out!