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DEAR COMMUNITY,
Send Chinatown Love started five years ago with the goal of helping small businesses in a time of great need — the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and xenophobia were devastating the immigrant-run businesses we loved. As we celebrate our five year anniversary, we’ve decided to discontinue our operations by June 2025. We share this news with many emotions, but have recognized that as an organization, we were most effective in a time of urgent need. While this is the end of one chapter, Send Chinatown Love exists in the context of a long history of Chinatown organizing, which will continue, fueled by the energy of our engaged community. ORG CAPACITY Structurally, Send Chinatown Love has always been a grassroots, volunteer-run organization. Our format thrived on calls-to-action, quickly rallying around issues such as xenophobia and the pandemic. To formalize the collective we built, many of our founding members considered the path of registering as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with paid positions. However, our team agreed to remain a volunteer group and direct as much funding and support back to the businesses we serve. Over time, we said goodbye to some members who were there from the start and welcomed new ones too. But while our all-volunteer model was effective, it became difficult for us to sustain long-term. Volunteering is humbling and hard work. Ultimately, we decided that with our organizational capacity stretched, we would rather transition our individual energies to other avenues. As we sunset, our capacities will shift – to life, work, and for many of us, to other volunteer and civic engagements. We will build upon our experiences and everything we've learned at Send Chinatown Love. MERCHANT NEEDS Although Send Chinatown Love’s chapter is ending, merchant needs remain. Even before the pandemic, language access, rising rents, community outreach, and digital literacy were at the heart of many of the issues that small, often immigrant-run, businesses faced. In 2025, listening to business owners, we know they also face high costs to remain in compliance with updated emissions and sanitation policies, unexpected supply cost increases for eggs and tariff-impacted items, removal of outdoor dining, anxiety over ICE raids and immigration policy, gentrification, coded legislation against traditional Asian foodways, and more. While we helped businesses with supplemental funding and new connections, we know there are other organizations better equipped to provide long-term business support and advocacy to address these structural issues – and that is where we want to direct attention now. LOOKING BACK WITH THANKS When we started Send Chinatown Love, we took action by organizing: we called on friends, friends of friends, and our fellow community members. We shared news on social media, mobilizing to deliver the donations we received to help small businesses stay afloat. We provided fast cash support to businesses, shared merchant stories, created a Gift-a-Meal program, organized food crawls and events, wrote a zine and a cookbook, and built connections across businesses and community organizations. Thank you to all of our volunteers, supporters, donors, partners, merchants, and community members for making our work possible. Every single person who has ever touched Send Chinatown Love has had an impact and been so generous in sharing their time, skills and resources. While we started out with the goal of helping others, we have received so much more in return: memories, friendships, experience, and above all, renewed faith in the strength of community care. In the past five years, we’re proud of what we accomplished to support Chinatown businesses in need.
LOOKING FORWARD WITH HOPE It is our hope that Send Chinatown Love’s legacy is demonstrating how impactful simply showing up can be. However, there is power in knowing when to take up space and when to make room for other beautiful things to grow. Over the coming months as we wind down our operations, we’ll be directing our remaining funds to our Gift-a-Meal program and small business grants. We’ll be facilitating relationships between merchants and community partners to make sure the small businesses we love are connected to other resources. We want this to be as supportive of a transition as possible for anyone who has ever looked to us for help – we're honored by their trust. For our supporters, we will be sharing opportunities to continue sending love to NYC’s Chinatowns. Our community is full of organizations and people that are doing incredible work day in and day out. We hope you’ll join us in supporting them. Keep appreciating our Chinatown small businesses. Learn their stories. Organize a food crawl with your friends. Plan a family dinner. Walk the streets and contribute to their vibrancy as you appreciate everything. Keep up the Chinatown love, as Chinatown gives us so much. With love, gratitude, & hope, |
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