BIOGRAPHIES

Dennis was born in Los Angeles on October 23, 1940. A man who loved his family, travel, athletics and adventure, Dennis often recounted stories of his childhood. His parents, R. Stanton and Dorothy Avery, were very busy growing their label company, Avery Dennison. However, their spontaneous family trips left lasting impressions on Dennis. Throughout his life, he continued to travel the world and even lived in Germany in his 20s. 

Dennis was a highly educated man. He attended Monrovia Duarte High School, where he played varsity basketball. He earned his BA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his JD from Cal Western School of Law, his LLB from Trinity Hall at Cambridge University, and his MBA from Pepperdine University. Dennis would continue his connections to his schools throughout his life, making generous donations to Cal Western and Cambridge. 

Dennis’ love for adventure led him to learn to fly at the age of 15. For the earlier part of his life, he enjoyed surfing, riding his motorcycle, running half marathons, and building Ham radios. He continued to travel the world in the latter part of his life, and he always remembered to correspond with those he cared about and express gratitude to those who helped him along the way in his life. 

Dennis’ professional life was also varied. He worked in West Berlin on the British Railway. He had a contractor and real estate license, working in home building. He was the Chief of the San Diego City Attorney’s Consumer Fraud Division. He served as the Dean of Students at Cal Western School of Law in the 1980s. He also served on numerous boards of nonprofit organizations, including the Avery Dennison Board of Directors. 

Everyone who knew Dennis recounts stories of how he loved to perform magic tricks for children and that he had a great sense of humor. No matter who you were, he always made one feel as if you were the most important person to him. His smile and presence would light up a room. 

Dennis was also generous, donating time and money to causes and organizations locally in San Diego, Borrego, and internationally. He was a founder of the Avery-Tsui Foundation, through which he funded many charitable projects. With the support of his wife, Sally WongAvery, Dennis led the Foundation to empower, enable, and encourage others. 

Dennis was a great friend to the San Diego Chinese community, volunteering his time to Chinese community events and making donations to many Chinese community organizations. In Borrego, he helped build a skate park and most notably erected more than 120 metal sculptures throughout his land, which he called Galleta Meadows. Much to Dennis’ delight, this quickly became a tourist attraction. Internationally, some of his donations included support for AIDs orphanages in South Africa, a library for a town in Honduras, a drug rehabilitation center in Hong Kong, clean drinking water for villages in South America, and helping to send hundreds of wheelchairs for the disabled and to train midwives in remote villages in Tibet.

Like each one of us, Dennis looked at the nighttime sky and pondered the stars, but he didn’t stop there. Dennis encouraged Professor Hawking to illuminate all of us as to the history and origins of those stars and of our universe. 

Like each of us, Dennis loved to listen to beautiful music, including great classical works written centuries ago. But it was Dennis who enabled Julian Revie to compose new masterworks of music that will delight listeners in our lives, and for centuries to come.

Like each of us, Dennis wondered about the strength of Iris Chang as she chronicled the events of Nanking 75 years ago, but it was Dennis who enabled Joseph Wong and Alpha Canada to help preserve for millions of Canadian school children today, and people in generations now unborn, the lessons that humankind must remember. 

Like each of us, Dennis cared for the future of his alma mater, Trinity Hall at Cambridge, led by his friend Martin Daunton. But rather than merely sending a few dollars to help with a current need, it was Dennis who endowed forever the development office in order that Trinity Hall would come to be forever self-sufficient with the support of all its alumni. 

Like each of us, Dennis admired the perseverance of immigrant families – including the parents of Dr. David Ho – but rather than merely encourage the remarkable accomplishments of the Ho children, Dennis preserved the record of challenges their parents overcame, so that their parents’ story could serve as an inspiration for countless other immigrants for generations to come.

Each of us can be inspired and touched by Dennis’ vision to see beyond today, and his empowerment, enabling, and encouragement of others to benefit generations yet unborn. 

Sally was born in Hong Kong and started at a Cantonese pre-school when she was 3 years old. In the late 1950’s, her parents moved their family to North Borneo because of their teaching positions. There, Sally enrolled into St. Monica’s, an Anglican primary school, and began her English studies. Sally describes North Borneo as a wonderful place to grow up. Dotted with palm trees, beaches, forests, and lots of local fruits, it is a British Colony populated by very friendly people. 

Coming from a Christian family, Sally attended St. Michael’s Secondary School. She was also very active in her teenage years, when she taught at Sunday school, sang in the choir, joined in a weekly youth Bible studies group, and participated in many different youth Christian activities. Around this age, Sally began visiting the sick in the hospitals on her own, giving them gifts she bought from the Red Cross gift shop with her own pocket money. She credits these loving acts from her lessons from Dr. and Mrs. Christopher Willis, North Borneo missionaries whose family befriended a young Sally.

One hot, sunny afternoon, Sally was enjoying a church picnic while the Malaysian sun was beating down on everyone. Even the breeze was hot. She spoke to God and said, “God, I will be happy if you can put me in a place where the sun is shining, but not hot, and the wind is blowing but not cold.” Six months later, Sally found herself in San Diego, as a foreign student, with her sister, Grace. After graduating from San Diego High School, she attended a local community college, Mesa College, before earning her Bachelors in Philosophy from the University of California of San Diego. 

Because she is fluent in the Chinese dialects of Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and Toishan, Sally was asked to interpret in the San Diego downtown courthouse in the early 1970s. Gradually, after some training in the courthouse, she became a court interpreter. Meanwhile, Sally’s parents immigrated to San Diego and opened a small restaurant in downtown San Diego. Sally helped at her parent’s restaurant everyday while many lawyers and court workers patronized the restaurant. They encouraged her to go to law school. Sally thought if she studied law, she could do more for others. Studying law was a new challenge, but Sally successfully earned her Juris Doctorate from Cal Western Law School. 

After law school, Sally served as the Executive Director of the Chinese Service Center of San Diego. There, she spent countless hours helping thousands of newly arrived immigrants and monolingual seniors settle into San Diego and find jobs. Sally also served as advisor to numerous Chinese and Asian community organizations. Sally was heavily involved with the Chinese Service Center from 1974 up until it was closed in 2016. The Chinese Service Center aimed to help all ages and families in the San Diego Chinese community, providing direct assistance of various services and also coordinating many of the premier Chinese community events in San Diego.

Sally was the first elected female President of the Chinese Benevolent organizations, one of San Diego’s oldest Chinese community organizations dedicated to preserving and educating the public about Chinese history and culture. To help preserve San Diego’s Chinese heritage, she also co-founded the Chinese Historical Society with her dear friend and mentor, the late Ms. Dorothy Hom, in 1985. Serving the Chinese community and preserving the Chinese culture and history have remained tantamount to Sally’s life. 

While working in social service, Sally also remained dedicated to her family. She was actively involved in helping her parents run two popular Chinese restaurants in downtown San Diego. She used her expertise in the restaurant business to become one of the first Chinese Certified Food Handling Instructors in San Diego to teach health sanitation and safe food handling practices to all the Chinese Restaurant workers. In 1987, she founded Chinese Professional Services. She provided critically needed services: translations, interpretations, referrals, food handling classes, business consultation services, and marketing research. Sally provided many free services for those with low incomes and limited English language skills. Over the years, Sally assisted hundreds, if not thousands, in the San Diego community both professionally and personally.

In the mid-1980s, Sally also began teaching English as a Second Language to Chinese senior citizens in downtown San Diego, through the Community College Adult Continuing Education program. As a teacher, she encouraged and helped hundreds of Chinese immigrants to attain U.S. citizenship. During this time, she was also the Principal of the oldest Chinese School in San Diego, founded by the late Dr. Irene Cheng. To this day, the Chinese School of San Diego remains a popular school to learn Chinese languages and to learn about Chinese customs and culture (https://chineseschoolsd.org/).

In the mid-1990’s, Sally opened her law office located in San Diego’s Mid-City area, where she knew the majority of San Diego’s limited English people were located. Sally spent half her time providing free legal service to low income individuals and new arrivals to the U.S. She practiced, “Give and do not count the cost. Give and do not ask for any rewards.” Thus, everyday there were dozens of phone calls and walk-ins into her legal office. Because of her Chinese capabilities, many Chinese people looked to Sally when they had trouble. Sally opened a general practice because of the variety of her clients and their legal needs. She had cases ranging from bankruptcy, immigrations, tort, criminal, family, labor, social security, welfare, probate, traffic, and workers compensation. Some clients visited to have forms filled or to have their English mail read to them in Chinese. No one was turned away. In 2000, Sally remarried and closed her law office. But with so much left undone, she opened an office to continue providing social services to the community in 2002.

In 2009, Sally founded the Chinese Bilingual Preschool for 2½ to 5-yr-olds. Sally succeeded her late husband Dennis to the position of Chair and CEO of the Avery-Tsui Foundation upon his passing in July 2012.

Sally has been recognized by various public and private organizations for her years of work to the San Diego community. She was honored by the Overseas Chinese Commission from Taiwan. She was given an Outstanding Teaching Award for over 20 years of teaching Chinese and as Principal of the Chinese School by the Southern California Council of Chinese Schools. In addition, Sally was awarded Special Recognition from the Asian Heritage Awards for over 30 years of service to the Chinese Community, and the 2006 Susan B. Anthony Leadership Award. In 2016 Sally received a lifetime award from the Taipei Taiwan Education Department for Chinese education conducted overseas for over 40 years, and was inducted to the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame.

Sally has dedicated her life to God, her family, and her community. She enjoys collecting books for her personal library, traveling, and spending her free time with her family.