Welcome To Chinatown

#THEHUB IS HERE! After months of construction and hard work from countless individuals, we finally inaugurated our new home, and this next phase of Welcome To Chinatown's work. Last week our partners and supporters came to celebrate this special milestone with us – peep below for moments from our #ribboncutting. Starting Oct 1st, we'll be open Tue, Wed and Thur from 10-5. During this soft open period for the rest of the year, we'll be taking drop in consultations and hosting a series of events (check out our first one on 9/4 with AZN AMERICANA)! And starting Jan 25th, we'll be fully open 5 days a week with even more in-store. Please stop by to say hello, learn more about what The Hub can offer you, and check out our upcoming events! This revamped space will be a place where entrepreneurs can embrace the innovation and creativity embedded in this neighborhood, a space where the community can network and receive resources and information. We are currently creating (and have already piloted) a diverse range of programming needs around new incubation, acceleration, technical training, advocacy, and more.

Next week on Tueday 9/24, we're hosting an Asian women & femmes entrepreneurship workshop in partnership with Welcome To Chinatown on, featuring Tiffany Pham and Mai Vu! At the workshop, they will share personal stories about their own pitch experiences, how they've navigated the tech and wine & beverage industries, and give attendees the opportunity to workshop their own pitches. Get your tickets below :) https://lnkd.in/g-NxRFdj

Awkwafina is joining Welcome To Chinatown at our Gala on 9/19! We’re so excited to celebrate with Nora, who was one of our earliest supporters in 2020 ♥️ Did you know that Nora’s great grandpa opened a restaurant in the Bronx, and then the first Chinese-American restaurant in Flushing? Her great grandma was a seamstress on the Lower East Side, and lived on Orchard St. Like so many, NYC’s Chinatowns and #AsianAmerican enclaves have meant a lot to her and her family. In 2020, Nora committed music sales to support our Longevity Fund, and helped bring visibility to our work in the early days of Welcome to Chinatown. Join us on 9/19 as we celebrate #Chinatown, and together reimagine what a thriving community could look like. Sponsorships and tickets: https://lnkd.in/evqpwFb6

Exciting News! After a journey of trials and learning, Welcome to Chinatown’s Coach Program has successfully completed its first pilot with Corina’s Beauty Center! We've connected them with top subject matter experts to refresh their branding, build a website, and update print design. Dive into the full story and see how it all came together: https://lnkd.in/eFk-vimV

Earlier this year I got to speak with 🦄 Steven Wakabayashi on his podcast Yellow Glitter about my work at Welcome To Chinatown, what it was like to transition into the nonprofit design space AND how I even became a designer to begin with! Thank you Steven for spotlighting queer AAPI creatives and making space for us to tell our stories! https://lnkd.in/ehk35uNa

As Chinatown's population ages and a wave of business owners retire, the futures of many small businesses are thrown into uncertainty. On American Public Media Group's Marketplace, our CEO Victoria Lee (along with Grand Tea Imports' Karen Liu and Hunter College's Margaret M. Chin) shares how our community should think about succession planning and change. Listen here: https://lnkd.in/e9thR2gx

Calling all friends, partners and supporters of Welcome To Chinatown – we're turning to you for insights on building the most impactful small business programming at our Hub. We'd love to know how we can partner with you (or your company) to build high-impact programming, and also hear what you'd like to see at the Hub. Please help us fill out this short survey: https://lnkd.in/eHSpHTEd (For every 15 respondents we get, we’ll select one winner for a $50 gift card to a Chinatown small business.) Our Hub is SO close to being open and we’re preparing a diverse calendar of programming for our wide community. But as always, our work is rooted in listening and adapting to our communities needs. Our survey closes 9/6, thank you in advance for sharing your time and thoughts with us :)

We're so excited to introduce Lauren Chan (who needs no introduction) as one of Welcome To Chinatown's 2024 Chinatown Champions! Lauren first reached out in 2020, asking how she could support our Longevity Fund fundraiser. This small seed of connection grew into an exploration and celebration together of AAPI identities. Lauren is a steward of positive change, using her influential platform to advocate for many of the core tenets that make up Welcome to Chinatown — innovation, entrepreneurship and AAPI intersectional identities. Lauren will be honored at Welcome to Chinatown’s 2024 Gala this fall, on September 19th. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/evqpwFb6

Announcing the theme of our 2024 Gala!! Join us to #REIMAGINE: A Thriving Chinatown, on Sept 19th. This year, we don’t just honor #Chinatown's rich history and enduring legacy—we boldly embrace its future. Amidst the backdrop of evolving challenges and triumphs, we are excited to unveil the Small Business Innovation Hub, a visionary project sparked at our inaugural gala two years ago. This hub symbolizes our commitment to fostering innovation, resilience, and growth within our community. It’s our treat to also announce our 2024 Chinatown Champions, Lauren Chan and Alan Chin, who will be honored at the dinner for their incredible impact on our community and organization. In classic WtC fashion, we’ve jammed a lot of much fun and special Chinatown touches into the evening - bus rides, performances, and dai pai dong (aka open air) dessert on the terrace. Join us as we embark on this journey of transformation, uniting our community and partners to create a vibrant and sustainable Chinatown for generations to come. Learn more about sponsorship opportunities here: https://lnkd.in/evqpwFb6

Still feeling inspired and energized from our very first Board of Directors x Associate Board #offsite last month in the Hudson Valley! We had the most fun day of strategy, farm work, and getting to know each other :) After our working session, we headed to Gentle Time Farm, a trans + queer cooperatively-owned, diversified vegetable farm growing culturally relevant East Asian crops for Asian community and diaspora in New York. On a farm tour, we learned about their regenerative practices, and got to taste napa, morning glory, peas and shiso straight from the ground! Our team had a blast helping to weed their crops. We ended the day with dinner at The Aviary, a local restaurant that sources produce from the Gentle Time. We firmly believe in taking ourselves out of the expected and day-to-day. We find it helps us explore new ideas + avoid echo chambers. We intentionally chose the Hudson Valley to see how building Chinatown’s success can be driven by fostering the #B2B ecosystem, which can prevent wealth extraction. And what's a great way to explore this? Seeing how fresh and accessible produce kickstarts the supply chain of Chinatown’s top industry: #foodandbev. Thank you Kaija, Salt and ShanShan for hosting our group at Gentle Time!