Mr. Philip Thiep Tran

the impetus behind the ptt scholarship

My father’s world was always centered around his family - a grandfather to 10 kids, a father to 5 girls, and a devoted husband of 47 years to my mother. During post-war Vietnam, my parents decided that our family would immigrate to the United States for the sole purpose of allowing me and my sisters to have a better life and more opportunities than they had in Vietnam - above all, the opportunity to get a college degree.

For countless years both in Vietnam and in the States, my dad would have to leave for work before sunrise and return after sundown, working resolutely in order to care for our family, as my parents believed that their daughters’ education and future successes equated to their own success. Despite my dad’s low-income earnings and having worked long after retirement age, he did see his dream through to fruition of having all 5 of his daughters graduate from a 4-year university.

Family, relatives, friends, and everyone who has met my dad can all agree that he has a reputation as a kind-hearted soul who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He came from meager means but gave abundantly with his money, his verbal compliments, and his time to family, strangers, and those less fortunate than himself, often times to his own detriment of not being able to get ahead.

Prioritizing his own needs and desires, he used to say, would happen only after he retired, though he nor we knew that his health would decline in his retirement years with advanced dementia. However, this is not intended to be a pity story, it is one of life celebration. We are blessed that despite my dad’s neurodegenerative condition, he still astonished everyone including his doctors by being loving, jolly, and kind, which isn’t always common for dementia patients.

Coincidentally, my dad’s birthday falls on the anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, which is the event that prompted our family to be Vietnamese refugees back in 1982. I thought long and hard about what gift would be appropriate for his 80th birthday, and concluded that there weren’t any physical birthday presents he needed for the momentous milestone. Rather, I wanted to create this annual scholarship in his honor beginning on his 80th birthday, and although he wasn’t able to comprehend this gift given the state of his mental impairment, it is my attempt to ensure that the core values that characterized him get carried on.

If you can relate to anything mentioned throughout this website, I kindly ask for your donation to the Philip Thiep Tran Memorial Scholarship. To be absolutely clear, not a single dollar donated will go to me, my family, nor my dad. Rather, 100% of donations will go to a deserving high school graduate’s college education. My sincere thanks if you’ve read this far, and for letting me share a little bit of background with you about this scholarship, and about the love, respect, and pride I will forever have for my dad Mr. Philip Thiep Tran, and how beyond thankful I am for the life he lived.