Bing Sum Wong was one of the key founders of the Gom Benn Scholarship Fund, which he helped start with a $12,000 contribution. Through the years, his Bing Wong Scholarship Foundation has continued to contribute $1,000 annually to the Gom Benn Scholarship Fund.
A long-time restaurant owner, Uncle Bing died at age 95, on April 24, 2007 in San Bernardino, where he had been a resident for over 82 years. He came to America at the age of 13, with his father, in 1922. By 1933, he was operating his first restaurant, in Calexico. In 1956, he and his wife, Ting F. Wong, opened Bing’s Famous Cathay Inn in San Bernardino.
“There always was a wait at Bing’s Cathay Inn on Highland Avenue,” wrote the San Bernardino Sun in a 2011 remembrance. “It was one of San Bernardino’s fanciest restaurants back in the day, and owner Bing Wong was among the city’s great civic leaders and philanthropists.”
He was a member of Rotary Club-North, his Bing Wong Scholarship Foundation aided students throughout San Bernardino. He was a founding board member for American Security Bank, honored by the naming of the Bing S. Wong Lecture Hall at the Norman F. Feldheym Central Library, founding Board Member Life Bank (now Pacific Premier Bank), received his Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Cal State San Bernardino, was honored by the naming of the Bing Wong Elementary School by the San Bernardino Unified School District, member of Wong’s Association of Los Angeles and member of Gom-Benn Village Society.
He was married for 76 years to Ting Wong, who died in 2014 at age 101. She helped run the Cathay Inn. They had a son Henry Wong, three daughters, Nanci Wong, Janice Lee and Josephine Wong, grandchildren Alyssa, Kristin, Kaitlyn and Emily Wong, Jennifer Schram, Bryan Lee, Brett and Trina Dresden, Tania Davies and 12 great-grandchildren.
