Mid-Autumn Festival Meet & Greet

Jingqing Chai

For Scarsdale Chinese residents, the beautiful Fall has traditionally brought up wonderful memories of gathering on the green grass by the Girl Scout house, where old friends and new meet and greet each other while children frolicked. Gathering like this feels particularly desirable after a long winter and spring of social distancing when even close friends had not been able to hang out, not to mention newly moved in families.

After discussing with the Scarsdale village manager, the SCA executive board felt that an outdoor gathering of more than 50 people was neither feasible nor prudent, and decided to hold a virtual Meet & Greet instead, to help bring residents together to reconnect and to orient newer residents on the Scarsdale village life.

On Oct. 4, 57 Scarsdale Chinese on residents participated in the virtual Meet & Greet, which started with a plenary of self-introduction and brief talks, followed by 3 sessions of breakout room gatherings. Each session is consisted of five rooms, first organized by neighborhood, then by school level (pre-K, K-5, MS, HS and senior club), and finally randomly assigned. 

Feedback from the participants suggests that the three external speakers —Marc Samwick the Scarsdale Mayor and Pamela Fuehrer and Alison Singer, the president and vice president of the Scarsdale Board of Education respectively — were well received. They explained their respective roles, how to reach out to them, and encouraged the Scarsdale Chinese community to participate in local decision-making processes. They highlighted the value of volunteerism and open communication — the two topics which were echoed and stimulated interests in the subsequent discussions in the breakout rooms.

The participants then heard from Ms. Lauren Yang, the departing president of the SCA, “met” with the seven volunteers who are members in the SCA executive board (2020-21 term), and learned the main activities/events planned by SCA for the year. While the plan is largely provisional and ultimately determined by how the pandemic situations evolve, the highlights are 1) a zoom webinar series on topics of common interest to the SCA membership; 2) a (used and new) book drive for the soon-to-open public library to help the library expand the Mandarin collection; 3) a mother’s day concert; and 4) a memorial day BBQ.

The breakout rooms are an innovation for SCA organized zoom events, and they worked out like a dream. The participants said they loved how they felt connected in the breakout rooms and how much they enjoyed sharing their interests and concerns with others. Great suggestions on zoom webinar topics also came out of the breakout rooms, which have been noted by the SCA executive board. Please email SCA at scarsdalechinese@yahoo.com if you have further suggestions and inputs.