Frank taking care of kids.
Standing at the edge of the three pointer line, he takes a quick breath and shoots. The team cheers as Frank Huang makes another three and they run to their defensive positions. Suddenly a quick pass interception turns the ball over. Eyes focused and ignoring the beading sweat on his forehead, Frank lets out a chuckle as he lets the ball fly.
“Haha come on guys, you’re making it too easy.” laughing as the ball fell through the hoop. Frank is a frequent visitor of this ball court because it’s directly across the street from his employment at Queens Herald Community Corporation. As a pastor and director of the after school Frank is busy but he always finds time to play some ball.
Why basketball specifically? Well Frank is a big sports fan and mostly because of an outreach program at his job. “We have a few basketball teams for the summer and winter where we get the kids from the streets and put them on teams and try to teach them about teamwork.” This year, Frank has already attended multiple games with his teammates in his age bracket.
As we walked to the nearby deli to buy some drinks he told me a bit about himself. He came here from Taiwan when he was nine has lived in Flushing for fifteen years now. Frank thinks of himself to be quite ‘Americanized’ but with the bonus of being able to speak Chinese which works very well in the neighborhood he lives in. “Immigrant life is tough and I know what they have to go through. It’s not easy.” he said.
Frank has always liked children and thinks that our society currently lacks supervision for them. At the same time we have a whole lot of immigrant parents who don’t know the system here so they really have the disadvantage in terms of the education their children gets, and their rights.
“So my heart is to really show those parents and kids that they don’t have to be stuck in that kind of situation and that they can have the same thing as Americans.” He commented after a gulp of water and a sigh.
One thing Frank noted after the basketball game was that many of the immigrants stick to their original language without trying to learn a new language and culture. “I’m kind of disappointed to see many of the immigrants coming here for a brighter future not trying to learn and adapt. When I grew up it was the same thing. The Chinese would speak Chinese in school because they could get by with just Chinese.” Frank mentioned his distaste for inequality and how sometimes people are limiting themselves and not realizing it.
Frank believes in helping others and there are a few families that because of their financial situation couldn’t afford the after school care for their children so Frank with the help of others helped them apply for different kinds of funding and assistance. Even the church has an assistance program that people can apply for.
He earned his BBA in financial marketing with a minor in marketing from City University of New York Baruch College and expected the businessman’s life. But because of how God has affected his life he now views things differently. From there he attended seminary where he learned the beginnings of how to start social work, the biblical principal of doing social work, and god’s teachings. “Social work should go hand in hand with everything that we do so we can show what love and grace is like.”