Friends and co-counselors of Tai Phan, the UCLA student who died
over winter break, will start the first of what promises to be a
regularly occurring event in his honor.
Unicamp will host the first annual Tai “Yoda Bruin”
Phan Campership Barbecue on Jan. 28. Yoda Bruin was Phan’s
special name, chosen by himself while at Unicamp.
The event will be held in memory of Phan, a Unicamp counselor
who died Dec. 19, 2002 while driving home for the holidays.
“We thought because (Phan) cared so much about the program
we were going to do a barbecue and some camperships,” said
Tony Garcia, university community relations officer for
Unicamp.
Unicamp trains students to be counselors over the summer, said
Garcia. Camperships are scholarships to send kids to camp.
Garcia said counselors work for seven one-week sessions during
the summer, hosting a total of about 1,000 inner-city kids at camp.
Phan was one of those counselors.
Tuesday’s barbecue will be held as a fundraiser event, and
the money raised will be used to send kids to Unicamp in
Phan’s name.
“We were really really obviously shocked, we didn’t
even know what to do,” Garcia said. “We dropped a
letter off to the family, but we just wanted to do a little
more.”
“A little more” became the idea of hosting the
barbecue.
Phan cared a lot about Unicamp, and the idea to have a barbecue
was based on a similar event he hosted, said Jason Liou, a Unicamp
counselor and a friend of Phan.
“Last year, Yoda Bruin threw a barbecue as a
fundraiser,” Liou said. “We felt that because he did
that … it would be the appropriate way to get the money for the
scholarship.”
“A lot of us were so close to Yoda that we all just felt
like it was the right thing to do,” said Liou, in reference
to the barbecue.
The total cost of attending Unicamp is roughly $350, said Liou.
The kids are only charged $40, and the rest is covered by money
raised by Unicamp.
If the event is successful this year, Unicamp may host an annual
event of similar sorts, Liou added.
In addition to honoring Phan, the barbecue will remember Salima
Nagji and Gerald Lamb, two other members of the UCLA community who
recently died.
Tuesday’s barbecue will be held in Bruin Plaza between 11
a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and will cost $5.