UO Community: Heart of Dinner
Founded by Moonlynn Tsai and Yin Chang, Heart of Dinner was originally born in Los Angeles as a supper club to combat loneliness. As time went on, the duo eventually moved to NYC and turned Heart of Dinner into what it is now: a community-backed mission to "combat food insecurity and isolation within NYC's elderly Asian American community." Since Heart of Dinner's rebirth in 2020, Moonlynn, Yin and their numerous volunteers have served over 50,000 meals to vulnerable elders. With a new goal of getting 250,000 meals served, Moonlynn and Yin have no plans of slowing down anytime soon. Below, we chat to the couple about how Heart of Dinner has grown in the past year, what they're planning for the future and how you can get involved.
How and why was Heart of Dinner born?
The initial iteration of Heart of Dinner was born in 2015 in our downtown Los Angeles loft as a supper club to combat loneliness in a city that can often feel isolating. We hosted dinners with strangers and created space for the most magical conversations. These dinners were donation-based with portions of proceeds going to nonprofits addressing food insecurity. We moved to NYC a few years after and in 2020, right as news was circulating that Covid-19 had reached NYC, we directly experienced an increase of racist remarks. Soon after, we saw videos of violence towards Elderly individuals living in a Chinatown who reminded us of our own grandparents, and were bombarded with news reports about the escalating food insecurity in our neighborhoods. From there, we formed the #lovingchinatown pillar and moved it under the umbrella of Heart of Dinner as it carries the same ethos of countering isolation through food; this time, with a direct hands-on approach to addressing food insecurity amongst the local Elderly Asian residents in NYC in a culturally thoughtful way.
How has Heart of Dinner evolved over the past year?
Heart of Dinner started between the two of us cooking the meals from our apartment, writing notes on the containers themselves. The biggest evolution has been the involvement from our entire community, not just local in NYC but from supporters all across the world! We started off providing 200 meals a week and now are providing an upwards of 1200 collective meals of hot lunch boxes, farm-fresh vegetables, and grocery essentials in our signature care packages that are illustrated and decorated by volunteers all throughout the U.S.
What are you envisioning for the future of Heart of Dinner? When do you hope to hit your goal of 250k meals delivered?
An image that hits too close to home, and one of the main reasons why we started #lovingchinatown, was seeing a video of an Elderly man in San Francisco getting robbed of the cans he collected and cruelly taunted. He was left crying, and it’s difficult to put into words how deeply pained we felt seeing his spirit crushed. It was gutting and we hoped to eventually reach our Elderly living on the West Coast (specifically Los Angeles and San Francisco) after we situated Heart of Dinner in NYC, to pay homage and our respects to the Elderly man we had seen in the video. We’re in this for the long run and we think we’ll be reaching our 250,000 meal goal at the end of 2022, but if we’re able to receive more donations and scale larger at a careful pace, that 250k should be hitting much sooner!
Does one moment or experience stand out for you over the past year surrounding Heart of Dinner? What is it?
It’s difficult to pinpoint one exact moment or experience over the past year as it’s truly been incredible to see, that during such a bleak moment in history, how much love and kindness remains and it is all in gratitude to this beautiful community of ours who we like to call our community of Big Hearts. (This was actually a nickname dubbed by one of our incredible volunteers, Nicole Yeo, who built our gorgeous website.) Strangers are now friends, and we’ve also had the honor of getting to meet and speak with some of the Elders on our delivery routes and have been deeply moved and impacted by their stories. Each week has been a very healing silver lining for the both of us throughout the entire pandemic.
Moonlynn: Can you tell us a bit more about your cooking background + experience? Any more info you’re able to share about the mentorship program you’re planning to start?
I grew up as an industry kid to parents who owned Chinese American restaurants around Southern California. I started “working” for my parents when I was in my early teens and after I moved away to college I took on any and all odd jobs I could find only to get as far away from restaurants as I could. I ended up becoming roommates with a bunch of guys in Orange County who were so passionate about food and through that I realized I love the act of cooking and especially hospitality. We eventually moved up north to San Jose to start a craft beer bar then a couple years after, I moved to Los Angeles to help manage Pine & Crane in Silverlake before moving to NYC to invest in the expansion of a restaurant from a 4-seater shop into a 40-seater.
I’ve always wished I had a mentor to bounce back ideas I had and especially when venturing on the path of entrepreneurship to have someone familiar in the industry to teach and guide me, and navigate through things like looking over a lease, a contract, legal, restaurant build-out, etc. I’ve had so many incredible people around me in so many different sectors but wish I had a person or people around me that had the knowledge and skills specifically for hospitality, especially for young teens and adults starting off in the industry. I’ve been working on structuring and forming a boutique mentorship program called Rooting For You(th) that will be launching early to mid of next year focused on providing BIPOC teens a foundation in this industry and providing the necessary skillsets to daydream and make confident decisions.
Yin: Can you tell us about your podcast 88 Cups of Tea and what kind of conversations you have on the episodes?
88 Cups of Tea was formed in 2015 because, as an actor, I was emotionally and mentally depleted by the lack of nuanced representation of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, women-identifying individuals on-screen. 88 Cups of Tea began as a podcast (now having expanded into an online social platform and media platform) as an instrument for me to incubate an ongoing mindset and perspective of normalcy for storytellers to write themselves as the main characters without questioning our right to lead our own stories, whether inspired by our life experiences or by pure imagination. I’m approaching my sixth year with 88 Cups of Tea where I’ve been highlighting and cultivating space that encourages storytellers to lift each other’s voices, and root for each other with genuine sincerity. Through conversation-focused podcast episodes and articles and essays that feature a wide range of storytellers from industry heavy-hitters to bold and heartfelt emerging voices, we cover a broad spectrum of topics that guide people along their storytelling journey ranging from inspiring personal stories that empower our community of listeners and readers to action, to craft advice that unpack writing-related challenges, to actionable step-by-steps on landing literary agents, to practical tips on managing money as a creative, and more. I’m so proud and moved that over the years, the 88 Cups of Tea storyteller community have written to me about how much our work has had an impact on them-- securing representation with literary agents, publishing their books, landing on the New York Times bestseller list, and some have even landed book-to-film adaptation deals!
We know you guys have been inundated with requests to help out – what’s the best way for people to support Heart of Dinner at this time?
We've been overwhelmed by the generosity of individuals and companies interested in helping/volunteering for the month of May, June, and July. We're currently at maximum capacity and fulfilled all of our volunteer requests for brown bags at this time due to surpassing our physical storage space (tiny NYC space). The most needle-moving efforts we do continue to need help with is fundraising. We’re comprised of a community of creative movers and makers and it’s been so heartwarming to see the creative fundraising efforts within the community ie: custom dyed yarn, incredible food products, custom jewelry!
Photography by Alex Lau
To learn more about Heart of Dinner, visit their website
Want to make a donation? Click here!