The Cupertino Courier

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Community volunteer now heads the Silicon Valley Moon Festival

By HUGH BIGGAR

Once a stay-at-home mom, Jennie Yeung turned from her empty nest to volunteering with the Silicon Valley Moon Festival. Today, for the second year in a row, Yeung is the festival's chairperson and event manager.

Only a few days after the festival concluded last autumn, Yeung began fielding calls about this year's event.

"Last year's event ran so smoothly, we had people calling right away to give us money," Yeung said. The 2006 festival, the eighth, takes place Sept. 30-Oct. 1 at Cupertino's Memorial Park.

Under Yeung's leadership during the past 24 months, the event has regained the luster it had prior to 2004, when a power struggle between two organizing groups eroded community confidence and support for the local event.

"This year we have several corporate sponsors and 150 vendor booths--the most we've had," Yeung reports. "We have a lot of cooperation and support from the city of Cupertino."

The event also has a small army of volunteers from Cupertino, Sunnyvale, West San Jose and throughout Santa Clara Valley. Yeung has created job descriptions and made an organizational chart. She also has attended many meetings, planning, coordinating, soliciting and promoting for what she says will be the biggest and best Moon Festival so far.

Yeung, who holds a masters degree from San Jose State University in theater arts, first got involved with the Cupertino Moon Festival in 2000.

"I was a housewife with two kids at home, and I began volunteering in a small way," Yeung remembers.

She took over as chairperson and event manager in 2005 when her youngest child, Tina, left for Swarthmore College in Philadelphia. Her son, Samson, has a degree from UC-Santa Cruz.

Yeung, who lives in Cupertino, says she has tried to be involved in community affairs during the years Samson and Tina went through school at Regnart Elementary, Kennedy and Monta Vista High School.

She continues to get support and encouragement from her husband, Bik Chung Yeung, himself quite a community activist. Bik Chung Yeung was the Junior League Volunteer of the Year in 2005.

Now, after two years as the chairperson of the event, does Yeung want to give it a go again for 2007? Well, yes and no.

"I still want to help and be involved, but I'm looking for somebody to take over," Yeung explained. "I enjoy doing it, and there is so much support, but I feel like my ideas are running out.

"I am a strong organizer, but I would like to see somebody who has strong public relations skills chair the event."