The May O. Lee Community Leadership Award recognizes one individual each year and provides the awardee’s chosen community organization an unrestricted grant of $1,000.

A co-founder of APIs RISE Fund and founder of Asian Resources, Inc., among multiple achievements, May O. Lee exemplifies community-driven leadership in the AANHPI community, across communities of color and throughout the Sacramento region. For four decades, she has led and forcefully advocated for equity, justice, representation, and resources—most often from the trenches while continuing to directly serve community members.

Each year, APIs RISE Fund awards one individual who exemplifies May’s spirit and commitment to community leadership, and additionally provides the awardee’s chosen community organization an unrestricted grant of $1,000.

Criteria:

  1. Awardee must demonstrate leadership for three or more years advancing empowerment, civic engagement, leadership, philanthropy, arts and culture, and/or activism for progressive social change in the AANHPI community of the greater Sacramento region. 

  2. Awardee must reside or work primarily in the greater Sacramento region.

  3. The chosen organization or group must primarily serve AANHPI community/communities in the greater Sacramento region; for-profit entities are ineligible.

  4. The funds must be provided to a federally-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

  5. Elected officials and current members of APIs Rise leadership/working group team do not qualify.

Banner Photo: Cha Vang, May O. Lee, Christine Nguyen, Tho Vinh Banh (by EJPix Studios)

photo of May and Christine hugging at event

Christine Nguyen

2025 May O. Lee Community Leadership Award

Christine Nguyen embodies everything this award stands for. Over more than two decades, she has dedicated her career to building and strengthening institutions that respond directly to the needs of immigrant, refugee, and AANHPI families in the Sacramento region, working powerfully behind the scenes to expand opportunity and ensure that no one is left behind.

Her career has taken her through some of the region's most important AANHPI-serving institutions:

Sacramento is fortunate to have a leader like Christine Hong Nguyen. Her more than twenty years of service reflect the same enduring commitment to community that defines May O. Lee's legacy. We are proud to honor her with the 2026 May O. Lee Community Leadership Award. (photo by EJPix Studios, Award Dinner, June 28, 2026)

 

Cha Vang smiling with May Lee

Tho Vinh Banh dancing with May Lee

2024 May O. Lee Community Leadership Award

Cha Vang

“Our community will thrive when we uplift those who have been oppressed, and when we fight alongside others to oppose injustice and inequity,” Cha Vang.

 

2023 Inaugural May O. Lee Community Leadership Award

Tho Vinh Banh

Tho Vinh and others who know her would all agree she is a force to be reckoned with - not too different than what folks would say about May Lee. Tho Vinh is a lover of food, people and plants and loves to live life.

Read about our Awardees