Welcome to the ninth week of our campaign highlighting essential workers. Whether working from home or within our neighborhoods, essential workers are supporting a strong recovery for those who are too often overlooked, underrepresented, or underinvested in.  

Our ninth essential worker feature focuses on Suzan Lam, Director of CPC Project Gateway. The following snippet is from a Q&A that took place between Chris Kuo of CPC Leadership Council and Suzan Lam, Director of CPC Project Gateway. Suzan helps youth and their families navigate the college experience. Throughout the pandemic, she has also offered guidance and support to individuals diagnosed with COVID-19. 

Chris Kuo, Leadership Council: What motivated you to pursue this line of work? 

Suzan Lam, Project Gateway Director: Like many of my students, I came from a low-income immigrant household and was the first in my family to graduate from college. I did have some older relatives who had gone to college, but they weren’t able to graduate, at least initially. Families like ours encouraged their children to go to college but could not offer support with the whole process of applying to schools, applying for financial aid, understanding college majors, and navigating different career paths. When I learned about Project Gateway and how it involves both parents and youth to teach families about college, that really hit home for me. I wanted to help families understand how to not let their child be alone in their transition to college and to see that for their child to succeed, they actually need to help them navigate their interests. Project Gateway was a way for me to teach students the importance of higher education and how to better navigate the system. I wanted to share the lessons I had learned through my own college experience and save them some of the difficulties I had faced trying to figure things out on my own. 

Share Suzan's story using #EssentialWorkers and #AlwaysEssential.

Essential Worker Quick Facts

 Black, Latinx, and Asian people make up
more than 70% of the city’s essential workers.

Human services workers are essential workers.

New York City contracts have not set rates that accurately reflect 
human services workers' commitment to essential work.

All of CPC's staff are essential workers. 

Tweets You Can Use To Share #AlwaysEssential Posts:

Help me lift the voices of #EssentialWorkers. Like and share this post to stand in solidarity with human services workers. #AlwaysEssential bit.ly/cpc-always-essential

#EssentialWorkers risk their health and their families’ health to serve others through COVID-19. As New York begins to recover, orgs like @cpc-nyc will be among the ones helping the hardest hit New Yorkers put their lives back together. Support them here: bit.ly/cpc-covid-19-relief-fund #AlwaysEssential

About CPC
The Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) is the nation's largest Asian American social services organization. Founded in 1965, CPC aims to promote the social and economic empowerment of Chinese American, immigrant, and low-income communities of New York City.

華人策劃協會(華策會)是全美國最大的亞裔美國人及太平洋島民社區服務機構.成立於1965年,華策會專門為紐約市的華裔美國人,移民,和低收入民眾提供金融權力和社區服務.