What a mouthful! But despite all the words, CISC this year put together another team into action to participate in this community wide event. Staff, board and volunteers all pitched in to help make this event a success.
Today, we had a group from the National League of Cities, United Way, Thrive by Five and Born Learning visit the play and learn group at our International Family Center - Seattle. These visitors came from all over the United States to learn about best practices for promoting school readiness, especially in immigrant communities.
Exciting news! In conjunction with the Indian Association of Western Washington, the Eastside Cultural Navigator Program will now be offering services at the Redmond site in Hindi and Gujarati as well!
We knew we were forgetting something! Of course we had our annual New Year lunch for seniors and volunteers, which was held at New Kowloon Restaurant between the open house and Great Wall Mall event.
The God of Wealth handed out lucky money to each guest, and all seniors took home a goodie bag full of noodles, sauces, cookies, tea, and much more.
Board President Mary Hsu greeted the crowd and 2 lively lions did their best to scare away all the evil spirits. Many thanks to the International Lion Dance Team, and especially their president who delayed discharge of his wife and newborn son just to perform for us!
Sunshine Garden seniors serenaded the crowd with beautiful song. And the highlight of the day was little Issac singing a New Year's song in Chinese much to the delight of all.
As if we hadn't celebrated enough, the ESL program this year held a new year's party for its students and volunteers. 
Over 200 people came and participated in this fun and exciting event. We all potlucked and were amazed at the variety and amount of food!
Two former students shared their experience taking (and passing) the naturalization exam last year and encouraged other students to keep on studying. In 2006, over 100 students were successful in passing the exam. Hooray for our new citizens!
And of course, everything had to be said 4 different times - in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese - to make sure even our beginning students were included and would know if they had won one of the lucky raffle prizes.
For more photos, go to http://www.gobofoto.com/CISC/index.htm
News Flash! CISC is opening a new International Family Center in Kent at the Great Wall Mall! With support from mall management and the Lee Family Foundation, we will finally be able to better serve our south end neighbors. And they can avoid the drive into Seattle!
For more information or to volunteer, contact Ida Lam at 206-624-5633 x 4103 or idal@cisc-seattle.org
February 21, 2007 saw over 500 friends, supporters and honored guests at our new facility. Clients, former board members, volunteers, and funders all crowded into our new building and marveled at architecture, the spaciousness, and the light. What a contrast to our old offices!
CISC pioneer Lily Woo described the agency's history and talked about what it was like 35 years ago. What a long way we have come - from a grassroots group of high school and college volunteers with a folding table and chairs, to a professional organization with nearly 50 staff and a budget of $2 million.
The construction team was especially impressed to see what an impact their work has and will have on the community over the next 60 years. Yes, that's right, 60 years. That's how long our lease is, and we plan to take advantage of the very favorable terms and stability it affords us.
Major donors like Yale Wong, pictured here with his grandmother, whom he honored with a sponsorship of our reception area, were delighted to see their spaces completed and utilized by grateful staff, clients and volunteers.
highlights of the day included a 30 foot long string of firecrackers, spirited lions dancing through the smoke, and of course, FOOD!
Take a quick stroll of our new office. Start your tour off with a warm greeting in our waiting room (thank you David for the beautiful flower arrangement), venture to a private conference room, journey into our open staff workspace, and then finally grab a cup of coffee or herbal tea and relax in our kitchen (yes, that is a dishwasher that you see).
Well, it's been 2 weeks now since we moved into the new building and things are starting to settle down a bit. Most of our boxes have been emptied and files put away, but there are a number of small jobs the contractor is still working on in the occupied space.
Last week we finally got the glass panels for the stairway so we can now use the main entry stairs. They look great! And people don't have to hunt for the elevator in the back of the lobby anymore either.
Getting down to the wire. All our boxes are packed and we're ready to go. The movers are coming in bright and early tomorrow morning to get us moved in.
construction crews are working on cleaning up everything else.
l the staff who will want to switch workstations when they finally get to see what they look like and where they are...
After WEEKS of negotiating with the city, we finally have an official address! 611 South Lane Street, Seattle, WA 98104.
Here are pics of workers preparing the downstairs lobby for carpet installation. The original floor is concrete with rocks in it. Not very attractive. Also not level with the outside walkway.
We're all set to move into our space on Friday! We can hardly believe it. After more than a year of working and waiting and waiting some more, we're finally ready to occupy our new home!
Here you can see the beginnings of the new stairs. The elevator had a little hiccup last week, but is now running fine. Should have no problem moving all our furniture, books, and lots and lots of files upstairs.
They're up! Now that the elevator's working, we've been able to get the operable partitions up to the International Family Center on the 2nd floor. Work on the tracks was completed long ago. We've just been waiting for the panels (which weigh about 300 pounds each) to be moved upstairs. 
Many thanks to our sponsors of these rooms: Kam Au, Bill and Agnes Kwan, and Sinclair and Genevieve Yee. Your support will touch the lives of over 1,200 families each year who use the Family Center!
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