Since the beginning of the pandemic, over 10% of restaurants in the United States have permanently shut down. In addition to this, the amount of anti-Asian hate crimes have risen 150% since then as well, due to the coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China. As a result of this, Asian-American-owned businesses were severely impacted in a variety of ways these past few years.
In response to these difficulties within the local AAPI community, student leaders from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine began an initiative called Cherish Chinatown, with support from the Office of Government and Community Relations and Tisch College, in the spring of 2021. They were then joined by students throughout Tufts’ medical, biomedical, physician assistant and nutritional schools. With the campus of Tufts located in downtown Boston within walking distance from Chinatown, students shared that they felt a sense of responsibility to take initiative and do their part as neighbors.
“The past year has taken an emotional and physical toll on the Asian American Pacific Islander communities. It has been heartbreaking to see the negative impact on small businesses in Boston’s Chinatown. We wanted to do something to show we care about our neighborhood,” said School of Medicine student Vaughan Skinker, a Cherish Chinatown committee member.
To support locally owned restaurants directly, students and faculty organized the Cherish Chinatown Challenge in November. It was a month-long challenge for the Tufts University students, staff, and faculty where they would order from locally-owned Chinatown restaurants, bakeries and stores. Each purchase would then be submitted into a weekly raffle. Five winners were drawn every Monday and were each awarded $25 in gift cards to local Chinatown eateries. As long as there were different purchases in each submission, there were no limits to the number of entries allowed. Every participant was automatically entered into a raffle for the grand prize, $200 to spend at their Chinatown restaurant of choice
“As a Tufts Dental student with our campus located in the heart of Chinatown, we are in an optimal position to advocate for our local community through not only community outreach and volunteering, but also educating Tufts students, faculty and staff about the historical implications of our institution,” Said Venus Tran, a student at the School of Dental Medicine, “We can only move forward by learning from our history.”
The Cherish Chinatown challenge ended up supporting 93 small businesses, with a total of 757 logged purchases. 40 gift cards were given out to raffle winners and student volunteers by The Office of Government & Community Relations. Business owners across the town were grateful for the support generated by the participation of the challenge. “I was buying 20 boba drinks for a club meeting and the business owner of the tea shop was incredibly grateful. I then proceeded to tell her about the Cherish Chinatown Challenge and she thought it was a wonderful idea,” said School of Medicine student Vaughan Skinker.
“We are so fortunate that our Health Sciences campus is surrounded by some of the best locally owned cafes, restaurants, and bakeries in the city. We want Boston’s Chinatown to fully recover, grow their business, and thrive, after a challenging year,” said deputy director of the Office of Government and Community Relations, Liza Perry.
Tufts University’s Government and Community Relations team collaborates with students, faculty, and staff to help the local communities surrounding Tufts campuses, especially Chinatown, through events and other activities that benefit the entire community. Applications for Tufts Community Funding, an annual program that awards grants to local nonprofits, will open next month. This spring, student leaders from the Cherish Chinatown program want to take part in another Chinatown neighborhood clean-up. Programs like the Cherish Chinatown Challenge and Tufts Community Grants are critical to Tufts’ basic university principles of education, collaboration, and inclusivity, especially with the stress from the pandemic in the past few years.
