History of Good Tidings Charity

GTC was founded by Thomas A.T. Nguyen in 2004 to continue the tradition of the Tà Áo Sinh Viên (TASV) Calendar in hopes of building futures for Vietnamese orphans and impoverished children.

The TASV Calendar was created by Thomas A.T. Nguyen back in 1999 when he was the Founder/President of the Vietnamese Students Association at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. The following year, Mr. Nguyen founded Vietnamese Students Associated Charities (VSAC), Inc. and continued the TASV Calendar project under VSAC until 2002.

In 2002, Mr. Nguyen restructured and renamed VSAC to a new name he came up with, Hope Initiative (HI), Inc., to further expand its appeal to the community. The TASV Calendar project was under HI until 2005. The 2005 edition of the Tà Áo Sinh Viên Calendar was the last TASV Calendar under HI.

In the Fall of 2004, Mr. Nguyen parted from HI and formed Good Tidings Charity to continue the tradition of the TASV Calendar. The release of the 2006 Tà Áo Sinh Viên Calendar marked a new beginning for the calendar project to fund Project Good Tidings (PGT). PGT, a program formed by Good Tidings Charity, in collaboration with the Vietnamese Dominican Sisters brings good tidings to the Vietnamese orphans and impoverished children in a more efficient, fruitful, and direct way. GTC is currently taking a break from the TASV Calendar Program and will continue the program sometime in the near future.

In the Summer of 2005, Thomas A.T. Nguyen called upon Quoc Anh Nguyen to join Good Tidings Charity in an effort to strengthen Vietnamese college organizations by establishing a project that will provide scholarships for the educational advancement of Vietnamese college students. As a result of this collaboration, Quoc Anh Nguyen and Thomas A.T. Nguyen founded and created a Vietnamese scholarship pageant called Hoa Hậu Trưng Vương (HHTV) to resurrect the tradition first began by the Vietnamese Students Association at the University of Houston-Downtown approximately half a decade ago.

For the purpose of promoting education advancement in the Vietnamese youth in the community, GTC adopted HHTV to establish scholarships for academic excellence by financial needs in Vietnamese college students. Other than providing scholarships to the participating Vietnamese college organizations to award their members, GTC’s goal is to encourage young people to be active in their Vietnamese college organizations, schools, and their community in a positive way. The HHTV Scholarship Pageant also serves as a cultural endeavor that aims to preserve the Vietnamese language and the Ao Dai in the Vietnamese community as a whole.

The pageant was named after the two most famous Vietnamese Heroines and Queens, TrÆ°ng Trắc and TrÆ°ng Nhị, who led an insurrection against the Chinese, winning national independence for Vietnam in the year 40 A.D. For their courage and determination, Good Tidings Charity honors their strength and beauty within the Vietnamese women in the Hoa Hậu TrÆ°ng VÆ°Æ¡ng Scholarship Pageant. GTC will continue this scholarship pageant sometime in the near future.

In the Summer of 2006, Thomas A.T. Nguyen and Quoc Anh Nguyen explored the idea of implementing a sponsor-a-child program for orphans and impoverished children in Vietnam. They felt that the only effective way in solving poverty and social ills is to establish a future in each child through education, clothing, sufficient sustanence, and medical well-being. As such, they both agreed that the help must be focused on each child in order to effectively build futures. Loosely paraphrasing a proverb, they feel that Good Tidings Charity should be about teaching a child to fish so that he may feed himself for a lifetime. 

With the help of Sr. Magdalene Thu Hang Nguyen, OP, Good Tidings Charity was able to establish the central region of operation in Vietnam under Fr. Joachim Nguyen Chi Huu for the sponsor-a-child program. The program was developed and implemented in Good Tidings Charity and was named Give Me Wings. The first child was sponsored in August of 2007 under the invite-only testing period. The program was under development and testing period until the end of 2010 with 26 children. The Give Me Wings Sponsor-A-Child Program will be open to the general public in early 2011 when the program is made available online for sponsorship. 

In the Spring of 2010, the idea of having a mentor and tutor program was resurrected. The program’s mission is to help guide young professionals in their journey to reach their academic and career goals. The program consists of people in most of all major disciplines available for mentoring. The program will be available to those students whom are without others in their direct family who can mentor them. In this way, the program can effectively allocate its resources to those who really need the guidance and mentorship. The tutoring part of the program will be implemented in the near future.

In the Summer of 2010, Good Tidings Charity gave out its first "VSA of the Year Award" to the Vietnamese Students Association at the University of Houston- Main Campus. The purpose of the "VSA of the Year Award" is to encourage local Vietnamese student organizations to volunteer and do charity work. In the summer of every year, Good Tidings Charity will pick the organization that deems to have excelled in those areas and awards that organization.

We hope that you have a sense of what Good Tidings Charity aims for by having read this brief history. If you have any questions or concerns, please write to us at GTC@GTCharity.org.

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