Christina Yu: With 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Christina Yu. This is the group leader of Social Security Volunteers from Riverside Community, Howard Li, he's been running the group for more than five years. According to Mr. Li, the volunteer group initially focused on community safety in Diamond Bar and Walnut, then expanded to riverside. It’s great to have you here Mr. Li, what caused you to think of creating such an organization? When did you start organizing?
Mr. Li: The reason why I decided to set up this volunteer organization is that one day in early 2020, I was browsing through various news magazines online as usual, I found that all the major platforms were reporting about the increase in the crime rate. This immediately caught my attention because I was really worried my family would be targeted by these criminals. Since all kinds of work in the company is handled through the Internet, which provides a lot of free time for me. Therefore I came up with the idea of running and managing an online support organization myself.
Christina Yu: The Social Security Volunteers Organization’s main purpose is to make sure that non-english speakers community members also get help when they need it. How many people are involved in the organization and what kind of social members is it made up of?
Mr. Li: There are a total number of 49 people who participate in our organization as volunteers. Our Volunteer group is mainly composed of social working groups and school students. And the community members who can benefit from this volunteer group, it is more than a thousand.
Christina Yu: What exactly are the responsibilities of volunteers?
Mr. Li: As an online volunteer organization, we have group chats on both Facebook and WeChat, which cater different language background groups. Our volunteers are required to work in pairs each day, and they can determine which day they are responsible for by comparing their schedules ahead of time. The responsibility of the volunteer is to keep an eye on the group chat in each area, so as to be able to timely help requests posted by the community members. In general, we get a lot of requests for help from members of the community who don't speak English to call the police or call an ambulance.
Christina Yu: Could you share a case that happened before?
Mr. Li: One time, a neighbor suddenly posted a surveillance video in the group chat, and the video content was a man dressed all in black driving a van repeatedly passing by, whose eyes kept looking to her house. The neighbor told us that she was very scared and hoped that we could send a volunteer or someone close to the house to see what was going on. Later, this suspicious person was eventually handed to the police. After the investigation, it turned out to be a thief, and the matter was successfully solved.
Christina Yu: Thank you so much for sharing Mr. Li. From KVCR News, I’m Christina Yu.