MOST OUTSTANDING Cultural Program NOMINEE
Vietnamese Student Association at Louisiana State University (VSA-LSU)
Spring Roll Night
Describe the cultural program and how it meets the mission and goals of the organization. Details MUST include: Date of event, number of participants, program purpose (i.e. goals and objectives), member involvement, use of resources, and marketing techniques.
Spring Roll Night was held at LSU’s Global Community Center on Friday, March 14th. Rolling spring rolls is part of the Vietnamese culture of sitting down and sharing a meal together. Spring Roll Night is our way of introducing a beloved dish and a bonding experience for our general members. Prior to the event, graphics and posts were made on all social media outlets to market the event and gain traction. We also had a generous donation of a Labubu and Pokemon card to raffle off, which did gain attention from the general public. People paid $1 for each entry to the raffle. Paid members were allowed to eat for free and non-paid members were charged $5. We set up numerous tables with all the traditional ingredients for a Vietnamese spring roll such as rice paper, vermicelli noodles, shrimp, pork, and a combination of lettuce and cucumbers. Food was supplied until resources ran out, as this event was advertised as “all you can eat”. For participants who are not familiar with wrapping spring rolls, we played a loop of how to wrap spring rolls playing on the projector inside. There were 104 people who signed in. Elections for the executive board for the upcoming school year were also hosted during Spring Roll Night, so many members prepared speeches presented at the end of the night. Everyone had a fun time listening to music, eating spring rolls, and hanging out with new and old faces. Talent Auction Auctionees also sold che thai, thai tea, and soft drinks to fundraise money for the CPP. VSALSU sold previous years’ t-shirts and handed out this year’s membership shirt as well.
How did this cultural program serve the campus and/or community?
This cultural program provided food along with an experience most people may never encounter: a family style dinner. Even though it may be looked over, family style dinners are a big part of Vietnamese culture. Sharing a meal with a group of people brings them closer together because it’s almost like a team effort to ensure everyone gets what they need around the table. Normally, it almost always ends in the awkward decision of who gets the last piece. However, E-board ensured that wouldn’t happen by constantly refilling the plates.
Did the organization overcome any challenges that arose while planning and implementing the cultural program/event? How?
Like any food event, prepping the food requires the effort of the entire team. We cut up all the veggies, boiled and peeled all the shrimp, cut the pork, mixed and fried the eggs, and prepared all the tables with the necessities for spring roll wrapping. During the event, a few E-board members walked around to check on the members and replenish whatever ingredients a table ran out of.
There was also the challenge of the ASU chapter at LSU doing an extremely similar event a few days before our event. This led us to making the prices more competitive and looking for other marketing strategies (like announcing a raffle of coveted trinkets)
An unexpected challenge was the GCC (room) being unresponsive for a long period of time, leading us to change an event that was traditionally on a Thursday to a Friday. This was unideal because it is Lent season, so our Catholic members were unable to consume the pork. We had to compensate by getting more shrimp than usual, adding eggs as a topping, and also providing tofu as an alternative.
