Not one to see her elder child waste a perfectly good summer idling in the house, Tammy Leung told her daughter Victoria Lee, then a rising junior at Sacred Hearts Academy, that she had two choices: Get a job or start volunteering.
Lee figured that volunteering would be less demanding and potentially more rewarding, so she began searching the Web for a suitable organization, eventually settling on Hawaii Literacy’s Family Literacy Program.
For several days each week, Lee helped children from preschool to middle school hone their reading and comprehension skills at Kuhio Park Terrace. Lee also devoted much attention to children for whom English was a second language, gradually building their vocabularies with new words.
"I realized that there was a great need for teachers to help these children improve their reading skills," Lee says.
The work had special relevance to Lee, who grew up in a Cantonese-speaking home.
Growing up, Lee had devised her own study methods to supplement the English instruction she received in school.
"I struggled learning English on my own," Lee says. "I knew what it was like, and I knew that I had the opportunity to go to a private school, and I wanted to help others who did not have that opportunity."
Lee returned last summer to continue her work with underprivileged youth.
While the literacy program has sharpened Lee’s social awareness and stoked her desire to pursue education as a possible career, it accounts for only one of Lee’s many community-focused efforts.
Starting in the seventh grade and continuing until the program ended last year, Lee spent each holiday season helping to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer gift-wrapper at Ward Center.
Lee is also president of her school’s Leo Club. Sponsored by the Kamehameha Lions Club, the high school service organization undertakes numerous projects each year, from providing assistance at the Sony Open to working with disabled children through the Special Olympics’ Young Athletes Program.
In her junior year alone, Lee completed some 231 hours of community service.
Recently, Lee was named one of five 2015 Horatio Alger Hawaii Scholars along with Therese Boter and Minh Thu Nguyen of Farrington High School; Min Sung Kim, Maui High School; and Keanu Mead, Parker School.
The award comes with a $7,000 scholarship, which Lee says will help her pursue her dreams of becoming a teacher and earning a master’s degree.
"Hawaii Literacy inspired me in what I want to do," Lee says. "I want to go on the path of teaching so I can help socially and economically disadvantaged children."
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Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.
