It wasn’t all fun and games, but it was close. The Colorado Dragon Boat Festival’s Asian Game Night fundraiser held at Kings Land Seafood Restaurant on Oct. 14 was a big hit with attendees, and truly proved that you can put “fun” in fundraising.

Along with great appetizers from Kings Land and also provided by CD’s Mongolian BBQ, there was a lavish buffet dinner supplied by Kings Land, free beer from Miller/Coors and soft drinks from Pepsi, Shave Ice dessert from Little Grass Shack, and of course, lots of fun games.

People spent the evening learning and playing different games including the Filipino shell game Sungka, Japanese card game Hanafuda, the Japanese strategy game Go and the Chinese game Mahjong. Each game had instructors on hand to teach newbies — one Mahjong table had Acting Consul General of Japan Hiromoto Oyama as a teacher all evening. In addition, CDBF provides a handful of fun carnival-style arcade games, like tossing “Dragon Eyes” (ping pong balls) into small fishbowls filled with water and goldfish, or tossing bean-bag “Dragons” into a slotted board.

Several artworks that were painted live during the festival in July were auctioned off, and Martha Legocki, the grand prize raffle winner of an iPad2 danced a little jig to show off her excitement.

Mudra Dance Studio performed a few Indian dances and received an award for their 10 years of involvement with the festival. The Race committee’s Derek Herman also was given a 10-year award for his help with the festival. And Dr. Rudy Lie was given his award as the 2011 CDBF Honorary Chair.

Jason Chen stayed late to finish giving out his insightful (and very popular) fortunes from reading palms and faces; and the mother-daughter duo of Abby and Camilla Rictor taught anyone who stopped at their table how to fold origami cranes, boats, frogs and even Harry Potter Snitches.

The atmosphere was relaxed and casual, and many people stayed the entire evening and chatted and networked. Many thanks to everyone who came out and had a great time!

Here are some photos from the evening (click to enlarge):
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We met up today with Michelle Lee, the lucky winner of the 2011 CDBF Raffle who drove home with a brand-new red Kymco Like Scooter from Sportique’s Boulder location.

Michelle, a geriatric doctor who travels to various hospitals, institutions and homes throughout the area, is thrilled to be able to scoot to appointments on her cool new ride!

Many thanks to Sportique for offering the scooter as a grand prize.

Here are the details on the scooter and other raffle prizes and their winners.

The Colorado Dragon Boat Festival is proud to announce the AAPI Emerging Leaders Program, which will focus on training the best and brightest young people within our communities to be effective leaders of the future.

Over the years numerous Asian American Pacific Islander community organizations have expressed the need for culturally sensitive leadership programs dedicated to train AAPI youth and young adults.

CDBF convened a series of meetings with AAPI community leaders and determined that a leadership program specifically tailored for the 18-25 year old population is needed. The program is necessary to ensure that the AAPI young adults become powerful, productive, and effective community and business leaders. The training consists of three full-day training sessions to be held Jan. 21, Feb. 25 and March 24, 2012. Deadline to submit applications is October 28, 2011.

Read more about the AAPI Emerging Leaders Program.