Asian American Community Services of Missouri

We adjusted the fundraising goal to $1000 since thanks to the great work of Kelly Bian, Corner 17 made a generous donation of $1000, helping us out a great deal towards our goal!

The youth group Asian American Civic Scholars (www.asianamericancivicscholars.org; Instagram #civicasians) Chinese History Initiative (Asian American Community Services as its fiscal agent) has been active since 2021, and its work with Valhalla Chinese Cemetery started in Fall 2022. A total of 20+ St. Louis area middle and high school students have contributed to many workdays, totaling about 400 hours.

● We have mapped, photographed, and cleaned 400+ Chinese burial markers/headstones found in plots 18a, 20, 6, FH1, and FH2.

● We have also ‘re-discovered’ a long-forgotten plot of burials that date back to 1924, when this Chinese Cemetery at Valhalla first started. This plot, including the 38 burials, has also been photographed and documented.

● We have entered biographical information found on stones into an Excel spreadsheet. Note: given the students’ limited Chinese ability, the team is about 70% finished with the Chinese portion of the information. The goal is to create a record of burials at the cemetery for better maintenance and community oversight.

● We have continuously communicated with the management team of the cemetery about the cleanup work we are doing and our interest in preserving the history.

● We have uncovered original documents showing the purchase of the original plot in 1924, and two additional plots in the 1930s and 1940s, by the St. Louis Chinese community.

● We’ve contributed to a guided tour of the cemetery by the MO Historical Society of the cemetery.

We hosted a centennial celebration of the Valhalla Chinese Cemetery in July 2024. See more at:

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/cemetery-north-st-louis-allowed-chinese-being-celebrated/63-c004ca0a-45f5-4aea-b4ff-9a10a13bbbc0

We are fundraising to help establish a Commemorative Plaque for Chinese Cemetery at Valhalla

● Objective: To establish a permanent marker, a commemorative plaque, of this important history of the Chinese community that has been in St. Louis since the mid-1850s.

● Rationale:

○ Having a permanent marker increases the visibility of the Chinese cemetery and the history associated with it.

○ It may lead to educational programming for those interested in local AAPI history.

○ It also ensures that the cemetery will be well maintained by the management as well as the community.

○ It would be the first-ever permanent structure built to document the history of early Chinese immigrants in St. Louis, including the contribution of the On Leong Association, who is often credited for this work, and the lesser-known Chung Hwa Association that actually funded the purchases.

● Cost and fundraising goal:

○ Depending on the final design, size, and material to be used, Valhalla’s management team gave an estimate of $12k for making the plaque and setting it up at the cemetery. We estimate an additional $2k is needed for setting up an informational website for the project.

○ As of the end of 2024, the AACS Chinese History Initiative group has fundraised about $6k thanks to an earlier GoFundMe for this project and other fundraising efforts; see more at https://www.asianamericancivicscholars.org/val-currentproj

○ In 2025, the current AACS Chinese History Team (Kelly Bian, Elizabeth Hung, Kellie Ji, Ivy Liao, Jaylyn Lin, Will Liu, Yijia Mao, Cal Wang, Maggie Zeng, Max Zeng, and Lily Zhou) have set a goal of raising $2000.

We thank the following community donors for this project who contributed financially in 2025:

1. Q Wings ($300) Jaylyn L

2. Pan Asia ($200) Will L

3. Cube Tea ($80) (through a discounted gift card campaign)

4. Performance fee donation $300 (Maggie Z and Max Z)

5. Performance fee donation $200 (Will L, Iris S, Maggie Z, Max Z)

6. Corner 17 ($1000) Kelly B