Recipient – Isabelle Gonn, we are so excited to honor you as a Seattle Kraken Hero of the Deep at our Lunar New Year Night game on 2/19!
Donating to The Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team
The Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team was the idea of Ruby Chow and a girls' group called the Chi-ettes. The Chi-ettes were a group of girls from Garfield High School who wanted to do more in the community. Ruby was a well-known Chinese American leader and was working to promote a better understanding of Chinese culture to the community at larger in order to relationships between Chinese Americans and others. At this time Ruby thought if other places like San Francisco and Victoria, B.C. could have a drill team why not here in Seattle as well? The Chi-ettes had been impressed by a performance by the St. Mary’s Drum and Bell Team based out of San Fransico and wanted to start their own team, they asked Ruby Chow. Ruby convinced the Chong Wa Benevolent Association to sponsor a community drill team, and in the fall of 1952, the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team was born.
In 1971, The Chinese Parents Service Organization (CPSO) was chartered as a corporation under the provisions of the Washington State Nonprofit Corporation Act. Its purpose is to raise funds and assist the drill team director in planning and implementing activities of the drill team.
Today the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team is still an alumni and parent-volunteer-based non-profit that encourages young girls to learn teamwork, leadership skills, Chinese cultural heritage and representation and involvement in the Chinese American Community. The organization continues to be goodwill ambassadors by participating in community parades and receiving special invitations to perform at many events.