Throughout the decades Sunny Chanthanouvong has served his Lao community in Minnesota, he wanted to solve one widespread problem that has had crippling financial and social effects on many Lao-Americans: obsessive gambling.
As the executive director of the north Minneapolis-based Lao Assistance Center of Minnesota, Chanthanouvong has worked with people who lost their savings, jobs and children as a result of their addiction to gambling.
Those who succumbed to the addiction, said Chanthanouvong, included his relatives and close friends, who have lost young children to the child protection services after leaving them home alone for gambling.