At age 52, Minh Hoang decided to leave everything he had ever known in Vietnam and emigrate with his family to the United States. With few marketable skills and even less English, it was a supreme gamble, but one Minh felt he had no choice in taking if his son and daughter were to have a better life.

Minh certainly had an unflagging determination going for him, but even he could never have imagined that only seven years later, his son Tom would enter Reed College, one of the top liberal arts schools in the country, with a full scholarship – a stunning achievement made possible in large part, Minh and his son say, by REACH Community Development. With a safe and affordable place to live — and REACH’s innovative youth and financial savings programs – the Hoangs had the stability and support they needed to focus on “reaching for their American Dream,” as Minh says.

That incredible story is why this was one of the more inspiring pieces we’ve ever had the privilege to work on. It premiered at REACH’s annual fundraising dinner in October, 2014.

(Creative Commons Ho Chi Minh City images by Robert S. Donovan, M M, KK Megumi, Yuichi Kosio, Tauno Tõhk, and Aleksandr Zykov under creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)