From Modest Heroes, Major Deeds

"One father just stood with his picture for 15 minutes, and he didn't say a word. He just looked and looked and looked."

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Keeping the Elderly in Touch

Charity for Montgomery County's Vivien Hsueh began at home. Or rather, at her rental home.

About a decade ago, she and her husband sold a rental property in Bethesda and with the proceeds began the Peter and Vivien Hsueh Family Fund, which Vivien oversees, deciding each year where their money should go. Some years, she gives to programs that help the homeless or underprivileged children, or Parkinson's patients, or to a school back in China.

But after a while, she got the urge to do more. To do, period. She had retired from IBM and was focusing on elderly Chinese immigrants in Montgomery. They had lived with their children and cared for their grandchildren, but now the grandkids were grown, and the grandparents were "all by themselves at home."

"In Montgomery County," Hsueh says, "all the funding goes to school kids. Not that that's bad. But proportion-wise, it's a bit off."

Three years ago, she started the Chinese American Senior Services Association, or CASSA. Three days a week, Chinese elders come to the Plum Gar Community Center in Germantown and from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. do tai chi and other exercises, sing in a choral group or do karaoke, learn English and computer skills, and take part in line dancing, bridge, Chinese chess and mah-jongg. Attendance averages 80 to 100 people, she says.

She has since expanded the program to the Wheaton and the Good Hope community centers.

"The idea is . . . they don't just sit home and get depressed. They make a lot of friends and speak their own tongue, and they don't feel they are lost, " Hsueh says.

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Going to Bat for Wounded Troops

It all started at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. While visiting soldiers, a Bay Area baseball player named Barry became inspired.

It was time, he decided, to give -- and give big. The player promised to tie his on-field performance to donations to war-wounded soldiers and their families. He amped up things by persuading other major leaguers to join him.

This was in 2005, when a steroid scandal was staining the reputation of another Bay Area ballplaying Barry: Barry Bonds.

But this Barry -- Barry Zito, now the San Francisco Giants' pitcher -- has created and expanded his fledgling charity, StrikeoutsForTroops. It has more than $500,000 destined for war-wounded troops at Walter Reed, Bethesda Naval Medical Center and other sites.

He donates $400 a strikeout and guarantees a minimum gift of $100,000 a season. He has pulled in nearly 50 other major leaguers, including such baseball royalty as Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, who pays $100 a strikeout; New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who gives $200 a home run; and Cleveland Indians pitcher C.C. Sabathia, who donates $100 a strikeout.

On the StrikeoutsForTroops Web site, Zito calls their efforts a reward for what he considers today's greatest cause: "the men and women in the armed forces who are making the ultimate sacrifice."

Heroes, all.

As Zito puts it: "Sometimes, in a world where professional sports and celebrities are front-page news, it's easy to forget who the real heroes are in this country."