Meal Bags for Community - VACCEB

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About Vietnamese American Community Center of the East Bay (VACCEB)

Location:

655 International Blvd., Oakland, CA 94606, US

Mission Statement

VACCEB serves the needs of refugees and immigrants within Southeast Asian and other hard-to-reach communities through educational, cultural, and social services while promoting economic self-sufficiency and facilitating civic engagement into American society. VACCEB envisions vibrant, healthy, and just Bay Area communities where Southeast Asian heritage is affirmed and uplifted through empowered and informed community participation, cross-cultural exchange, and educational programming.

Description

Founded in 1994, VACCEB provides wraparound services that encompass ESL instruction, citizenship and legal assistance, digital literacy, employment assistance, and food security towards the goal of helping Southeast Asian refugees and immigrants obtain social and economic independence. Our center is located at Clinton Park in the heart of Eastlake, adding to its accessibility to the four thousand plus community members it serves and many more who visit the park at leisure.

In early February 2021, a significant part of our center was heavily impacted by a fire that originated from a nearby homeless encampment. Since then, our team has been unable to reoccupy without incurring safety risks. We have transferred our operations outdoors and to a temporary location nearby where VACCEB’s tenacious staff continues to provide services to refugees and immigrants in Alameda County and the City of Oakland. Our case managers meet clients outdoors, our ESL instructors and vaccination intake counselors coordinate with clients virtually and over the phone, and our Mobile Meal Program is currently operating out of shipping containers. Though our programs have taken on a makeshift component, we are still providing roughly 65,000 meals to over 3,000 clients monthly and 350,000+ service units annually. We are inviting volunteers to join our Mobile Meal Program staff to continue serving limited-English speaking families and senior community members.