Published April 23, 2021 at 11:14am.
Story by Roselle Tenorio. Photos courtesy of The Source of Hope.
Quynh Chau Stone tells everyone to call her QC. A mother, entrepreneur and advocate known for her humility, service, and faith, QC’s story was born out of struggle. It is a story like so many Vietnamese Americans who experienced the consequences of recent war, and includes a traumatic journey. “I was orphaned twice—once in Vietnam and once in America,” QC says. “I fled Vietnam with my four brothers and we went 13 days at sea with no food or water before being rescued.”
Quynh Chau Stone, President/Co-Founder, The Source of Hope
QC was later reunited with her father in America who had been sponsored and resettled as a refugee. Her harrowing experience has not weakened her resolve, but only empowered QC to inspire and motivate others. She says, “I am very successful now, but it comes with failures and tremendous struggles to get here and I use that to influence others to keep going.”
Quynh has a long list of successes throughout her life, but she is most proud of her marriage to her college sweetheart and their two beautiful girls, Nicole, 25, and Analee, 19. With her husband, QC owns a construction investment firm, as well as Stone International Wellness in Plano. Combining her love of both eastern and western wellness techniques, QC has travelled for over two decades to speak and teach about health, beauty, and wellness around the world.
But ten years ago QC and her husband decided they wanted to create space to support the local community. It began by opening a facility in Grand Prairie, and later became The Source of Hope, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing hope, wellness, and education to individuals in need.
The Source of Hope serves as an umbrella for four distinct programs. Wellness of Hope provides skin and hair treatments at low or reduced cost. The wellness volunteers help provide wigs to children with leukemia, skin care for people with areola reconstruction or scalp pigmentation, and makeovers for people experiencing homelessness or living with HIV/AIDS. The treatments are designed to boost recipients’ self esteem, and allow them to re-engage in life’s activities. QC notes in particular how these services make the difference in someone having access to a job in the workforce, which allows them to regain independence and self-sufficiency.
Education for Hope continues their focus on workforce development, offering training programs for hair, health, and beauty workers, partnering with salons across the metroplex like Stone International Wellness. The program offers scholarships as well, providing access to more education and industry training.
The third program is a monthly event called Serving Hope, which provides 4,000 home-cooked, organic meals for families in need, veterans who are homeless, and seniors across three counties. “Last month we served roasted sweet potato with organic turmeric chicken and pasta salad,” says QC. “Our meals are focused on health, keeping things low in sodium and sugars.” Serving Hope is QC’s favorite way to engage new volunteers because they always need hands to prepare, cook, and distribute food.
Source of Hope’s fourth program was born out of two needs: the need of utilizing surplus food not cooked for Serving Hope, and the need of assisting other organizations to provide food for people in the Dallas community. QC is very passionate about training other nonprofits and volunteers so they can spread the service to all in need. Sharing Hope does just that by providing other organizations with pallets of food, working closely with 90 small nonprofits who are doing similar work across the metroplex.
While QC has been seen as a community leader on the heels of the #StopAsianHate movement, her leadership has deep roots. “I want to empower the Vietnamese community,” QC shares. “It is the second fastest growing population in DFW. I want to be the first and not the last to inspire all of our Asian community and we can inspire others to come together and give back to this country that gives us so much. One of my goals and dreams is when people come to see us they don’t just think we are an Asian nonprofit. We are very diverse, The Source of Hope has 65 different countries represented and many different religions and, more importantly, we serve anyone in need.”
Partnerships with local churches, schools, and nonprofit organizations have helped QC’s impact to grow exponentially, reaching more people with hope, wellness, and education than she ever thought possible. Rudy and Regena Taylor at Community Food Bank in Fort Worth have played a pivotal role in making food distribution possible. Chris Simmons, Pastor at Cornerstone Baptist Church, along with Dr. Michelle Bobadilla, Senior Associate VP Outreach Services & Community Engagement, and Arcilia Acosta, Trustee at Communities Foundation of Texas, have all helped to pave a path of success for QC and her team.
There are a number of ways to support The Source of Hope including their next monthly meal event, Hope has Sprung! The event is this weekend with food preparation on Friday and service available on Saturday from 6am-1pm at the Cornerstone Kitchen. New volunteers are welcome to fill out a registration form and then sign up for a time to serve. If you would like to support The Source of Hope or learn more, visit thesourceofhope.org.
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