Iyleen, Jackie, Jon with Harris Zhao. FAN is an inaugural sponsor of the Asian Restaurant Week.

Battered by relentless bad news and global tragedies, retreat can deepen our sense of helplessness, it can paralyze us.

When my instinct has been to retreat, only serving others has given me the strength to move forward.

It may seem counterintuitive, but I’ve found it to be true, time and again.

Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.

Working together to support those in our community is how we foster hope, build action networks, and expand our capacity for empathy and hope. Overwhelm is understandable. Acting together is essential.

We are grateful for each of you who have donated early and generously. We thank you for your patience, too as do the necessary foundational work to build our FAN Board and grow our FAN family.
With your help, we provided food assistance to the family displaced by the fire on Hudson Street. We’ve just submitted a grant proposal that outlines some truly aspirational plans.

Outreach

While our board members have been networking and spreading the word of our Mission and Vision, I have been meeting with community leaders, foundations, potential collaborators, and partners from universities like Tufts, Harvard, Emerson and Sawyer Business School. If they share our goals— I’m reaching out.

As Director and Founder of FAN, I engaged with 30+ leaders in 2023, representing a diverse cross-section of our neighborhood and the larger community.

This Spring, I have begun to broaden and deepen these connections, as well as reach out to new leaders in our target areas. Community events like walkthroughs with elected officials, planning sessions for arts, parks, the library, and city food justice alliances- where I see an opportunity for impact, a chance for all of us to do together what none of us could accomplish alone—I’m there. FAN is there.

Highlights and Milestones:
We sponsored the first annual Boston Asian Restaurant Week.

- Evelyn (outgoing Board Secretary), Iyleen, Jon and Jackie joined throngs of young AAPI professionals, Tourism stars from MeetBoston, and restaurateurs from in and around Boston to launch the first Asian Restaurant Week. Support restaurants- our Chinatown’s heart

Our Advisory board is stellar, and we have added significant talent in recent months. You will see profiles on our …

New website! You’ll see ease of navigation, easier contact and donation functions, and a beautiful showcasing of our community. Please let us know how you like it and let us know of any blips you may find.

Exceeding targets! A generous private donor offered to match donations if we could gather up to $6K. Special thanks to those who donated early to help us double your money through this challenge grant. Together we impressed our donor and received a bonus. Your initial donations helped us start with $13K!

Going the Distance! Adding to The Boston Foundation’s Asian Community Fund Grant, our Treasurer, Jon Eng, ran the Boston Marathon for us, and we are very near our new goal of $20K to start the Year of the Dragon!

#AAPI Night at Fenway - Jon & Jackie joined a large community contingent at Fenway to kick off #AAPI Heritage Month.

We have built a solid board and continue to interview candidates to join us. We seek those who believe our Chinatown must survive and thrive. We seek more language diversity (Cantonese, anyone?) a PR professional would be great.

What’s on the horizon?

Opportunity! We are building our board. Interested in exploring whether this could be right for you?
We have begun discussions with Harvard Graduate School of Design grad students and are excited to collaborate on a best in class project. Details to come. Another significant collaboration is in the works, so stay tuned.

Launch Party date and location TBD

We’ll have a silent auction (if you have goods or services to donate, please let us know), delicious food, and ample opportunity to meet the board, meet new friends, and join our FAN club for updates and announcements. You won’t want to miss this!

We are so excited to roll up our sleeves and dig in. Please sign up and let us know how you’d like to connect, volunteer on an ad hoc committee, help activate our first food access project, serve on our board, or donate to keep the momentum rolling.

We’re so excited about working together for our community. Looking forward to seeing you later this summer for the official launch party!!

upward and onward,

Jackie

Expanding empathy, Building Capacity, Growing resilience.

Art Builds Community