{"id":32681,"date":"2011-04-13T08:05:41","date_gmt":"2011-04-13T12:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=32681"},"modified":"2011-08-16T16:03:28","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T20:03:28","slug":"shining-a-light-on-his-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2011\/04\/shining-a-light-on-his-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Shining a Light on his Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"JeremyBui_lg\"<\/a>
Jeremy Bui, '13 (BUS). Photo by Derek Dudek<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For most students, completing forms, such as the financial aid application for college, is a daunting task. But Jeremy Bui \u201913 (BUS) coped with a mountain of paperwork before he even completed high school, when he and his two brothers established an educational foundation to benefit children in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Together with his twin Zachary \u201913 (ENG) and older brother Timothy \u201910 (CLAS), Jeremy established the Viet-Sun Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide educational opportunities through academic scholarships and other resources to impoverished village children in Vietnam, where his parents lived until they immigrated to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took a lot of pride in putting the Viet-Sun Foundation filing together without a lawyer\u2019s help,\u201d says Bui, an Honors Scholar. \u201cIt\u2019s what got me interested in accounting. I eventually want to get into corporate law so I can gain knowledge to benefit the Foundation, which provides education for the children of my parents\u2019 homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bui\u2019s decision to enroll at UConn helped put him on the fast track toward his goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose UConn\u2019s offer over an Ivy\u2019s \u2013 what really won me over was the Honors Program and the Special Program in Law,\u201d says Bui. He\u2019s among the first group of students in the combined undergraduate\/graduate program, which guarantees acceptance to UConn\u2019s School of Law for those who meet certain requirements while earning their bachelor\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n

Bui\u2019s experience as president of the foundation he founded with his brothers may inspire his Honors Scholar project. \u201cI\u2019d like to expand the Foundation by researching the accounting strategies that make nonprofits most effective,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Bui and his siblings co-founded the Foundation in 2008, a year after a family trip to Vietnam, where his parents wanted their sons to see that country\u2019s beauty. \u201cBut when we met our grandmother in Phan Rang Village, in southern Vietnam, it was very run-down,\u201d he says. \u201cWe saw kids running the streets, and we learned that they forgo education to help their families, working on farms and fishing boats to put food on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family immediately donated cash and food, but with a long line of people seeking the handouts, the brothers decided that mitigating Vietnam\u2019s lack of public education was crucial. \u201cOur parents had already proven to us through their own lives that education will help people pull themselves out of poverty to better their communities and lives,\u201d Bui says.<\/p>\n

Upon escaping Vietnam during the war years, his father had earned his GED and worked as a janitor at a college to pay for his education. \u201cHe always told me he\u2019d see the students in the classrooms and want to be in those seats. My father now has a doctorate,\u201d Bui says of his father, a flight safety manager for Hamilton Sundstrand Space System International in Windsor Locks, Conn.<\/p>\n

His mother, who left her family of 14 siblings and was placed in various foster homes, eventually became a chemist, earned a master\u2019s degree, and today is director of laboratory and quality assurance at Aero All-Gas Company in Hartford. She also is CEO and president of her own company, Sons Specialty Gas LLC in Enfield, Conn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider my parents my heroes,\u201d Bui says.<\/p>\n

Elder brother Timothy, a math and chemistry major and UConn Honors Scholar, chaired the Foundation \u2013 although now that he\u2019s in medical school, Jeremy Bui\u2019s management role has increased. Jeremy\u2019s twin brother, Zachary, built the website<\/a>. The Foundation has raised $10,000, a start that has the potential to help hundreds of young people, since it costs $20 to $50 annually to educate each student.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo further the whole nonprofit cause, I\u2019d like to become a consultant for young people, helping them pursue their passions by starting their own nonprofits,\u201d Bui says. \u201c\u2018Be of benefit to others\u2019 has always been a motto of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was published in the Spring 2011 edition of UCONN Magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A visit to his family\u2019s village spurred Jeremy Bui to establish an educational foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-32681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 17:40:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32681"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44405,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32681\/revisions\/44405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32681"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=32681"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}