Remembering Bo-Lai Ng
Bo-Lai Ng (left), with SF New Deal Board President & Co-founder Lenore Estrada and SF New Deal Chief Program Officer & Co-founder Jacob Bindman at the Chinatown Community Development Center Gala in 2021
On October 21, our dear friend and team member Bo-Lai Ng passed away following a prolonged battle with cancer. Though in recent months she had stepped back from her work at SF New Deal, Bo-Lai’s commitment to our partners and to the many team members who worked with her and loved her was palpable until the very end. We have been reflecting on the indelible mark she has left at SF New Deal, marveling at her courage and strength these last four years and the ways that, even as she navigated challenges with her health, she unwaveringly showed up for the communities we served.
Bo-Lai was an early arrival to the SF New Deal team, joining in the summer of 2020. She dove headfirst into a role only loosely defined by a pressing community need, when we were a fledgling nonprofit mere months into existence. From the moment she arrived, our organization was profoundly changed by her presence. She quickly jumped into our nascent call center - a post that would become a staple of her time at SF New Deal. She established our designated lines for Mandarin and Cantonese speakers and recorded warm messages to greet callers - wishing them fortune for the Lunar New Year, or simply a wonderful day. She held down the phones for our early meal programs, including serving homebound seniors, in that early jarring chapter of the pandemic. In those first couple years, our phone line was active 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and Bo-Lai personally fielded thousands of calls. In Bolai we had not only an interpreter, but a crucial (and heartfelt) community champion. Our approach to cultural responsiveness is modeled on her example.
Within SF New Deal, Bo-Lai wore many hats and she looked fabulous in every single one of them. Interpreter and translator, restaurant liaison, program manager, partner success manager, head of the AAPI Community Resource Center, and call center queen touches upon the spectrum she filled during her four year tenure with us. When the opportunity came to partner with Chinatown Community Development Center on Feed & Fuel 2.0, Bo-Lai recruited over fifty local Chinatown restaurants within a span of two weeks. Later she went on to organize a similar number of nightclubs, restaurants and bakeries citywide for our Worker Transportation program in partnership with Cruise. Her energy and proactivity helped us build trusted relationships with many partners within the AAPI community and beyond, including partnerships our organization still holds dear today. As a new organization, we were welcomed because Bo-Lai was welcomed, and we could be trusted because Bo-Lai was trusted.
Bo-Lai’s warmth and light were radiant and this loss is a painful one. Her passion and commitment to serving the community will forever guide our team and work, just as it did from the moment we met her. We will miss her beyond measure.
懷念吳寶麗女士
10 月 21 日，我們親愛的朋友兼團隊成員吳寶麗在經歷了與癌症長期鬥爭後去世。儘管最近幾個月她離開了三藩市新交易的工作，但寶麗對我們的合作夥伴以及與她一起工作並熱愛她的團隊成員的承諾一直都在。她在三藩市新交易留下來不可磨滅的印記，我們驚嘆於她在過去四年裡的勇氣和力量，尤其她克服健康挑戰，堅定不移地為我們服務的社區服務。
寶麗於 2020 年夏天加入三藩市新交易， 是團隊的早期成員。加入我們這個才成立幾個月的非盈利機構，她就毫不遲疑的擔負起了社區急切需要， 但是卻還未明確定義的職責。她到來的那一刻起，就為我們組織帶來了深刻的改變。她很快就服務於我們剛成立的熱線呼叫中心——後來成為她在三藩市新交易工作期間的主要職務。 她為我們設立了普通話和粵語專線，並錄製了熱情的接聽語音信息——祝他們農曆新年好運，或者簡單的美好一天問候。在疫情爆發的早期階段，她負責我們的早餐活動，為居家老年人提供服務的熱線電話接聽。在最初的幾年裡，我們的熱線每週 7 天、每天 12 小時都提供服務，寶麗親自接聽了數千通電話。寶麗不僅是一位口譯員，還是一位至關重要的（熱心的）社區英雄。我們對文化使命的詮釋就是以寶麗為模範代表。
在三藩市新交易，寶麗一人擔任許多角色， 她的每一個角色都精彩無比。 筆譯和口譯員，餐廳聯絡， 活動經理， 合作夥伴經理， 亞太社區中心主管以及熱線呼叫中心皇后， 每個角色都是她四年職業光譜中的一抹亮色。 當Feed & Fuel 2.0活動有機會和和中國城社區發展中心合作時， 寶麗在两周内招募了 50 多家当地唐人街餐廳。后来，她与 Cruise 合作，在全市范围内为我们的工人交通活動组织了差不多数量的俱樂部、餐馆和面包店。她的主動和熱情帮助我们与亞太社区内外的许多合作伙伴建立了值得信赖的关系，其中一些夥伴關係我們至今依然無比珍視。作为一个新组织，我們因為寶麗受到歡迎而受到歡迎， 我們因為寶麗得到信任而得到信任。
寶麗的溫暖和光芒熠熠生輝，因此失去尤為痛苦。她對服務社區的熱情和承諾將永遠指導我們的團隊和工作，就像我們見到她的那一刻一樣。我們將無比想念她。