Even amongst the multitude of challenges that COVID-19 brought, 2021 was another year where we found community in food and culture. In this newsletter, we’ll be highlighting the achievements from the past year as well as our efforts to support local districts, restaurants, and markets. Thank you for being a part of our network of donors, restaurateurs, chefs, and food lovers! We aim to continue working with you all to fulfill our initiatives for 2022.
LinkedIn's 'Cooking for Advocacy' event, a conversation on our Asian x Black Unity project with Ms. Tarika Lewis and Good Good Eatz. We brought chefs Leilani Baugh and Nora Haron with a special appearance from Keba Konte of Red Bay Coffee to share their food and thoughts to the conversation with the Customer Success team at LinkedIn.
2021 Highlights
- Huangcheng Noodles relocation at Swan’s and mural/design collab with artist Jocelyn Tsaih and designer Maya Kulkarni
- E14 Gallery AAPI Artist Market
- Mid-Autumn Lantern Festival Painting collab with Cut Fruit Collective
- Old Oakland Celebrates
- Old Oakland Celebrates: The Holidays
Loved seeing all our good people out and about for the E14 AAPI Artist Market. Thank you for showing up for our creative entrepreneurs and shout out to E14 Gallery, Civic Design Studio, Steaming Happiness, and The Lei Company for making it such a beautiful success! Click to View Post (1)
This lantern painting party in Swan’s Market was hosted by Cut Fruit Collective and with food by Anh from Cam Huong. Joanne Tran of Joanne Jello Cakes provided moon cakes for the painters which were plant-based, gluten-free, with a vegan-friendly twist! The lanterns painted here for the Mid-Autumn Festival joined hundreds of lanterns painted by OUSD students to decorate Little Saigon (Eastlake) businesses and Clinton Park during the Mid Autumn Festival celebrations. Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Old Oakland Celebrates: The Holidays! We were so juiced to have our special GGE fam DJ Syrehn and DJ Cyndigs Rising lay down the good vibes all day at Miss Ollie’s. DJ Chris "L7" Cuadrado spinning at E14 Gallery and DJ Emancipation and DJ Lady Ryan holding it down in the Swan’s Courtyard! Gift-wrapping, an outdoor movie, art activities, video games, sports and a raffle worth $1200 - a joyful celebration made possible by all who came and contributed! Special thanks to Kaiser Oakland, the Old Oakland Neighbors, Made Museum, Junior Center of Arts and Science, Oakland Central, EBLADC, Civic Design Studio, and E14 Gallery for being such a big part of this. Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3) (4)
2021 Highlights
- Lunar New Year fundraiser with Save Our Chinatowns, collaboration with 12 local social media influencers on Good Good Eatz feed takeover
- Partnered with Eat.Learn.Play Foundation to host "Christmas with the Currys" at Lincoln Square Park to bring holiday cheer to hundreds of underserved families in our Chinatown and Eastlake communities.
In Oakland Chinatown, you can find tang yuan at spots like U C Dessert , Baby Cafe, and Shooting Star Cafe. Click to View Post (1)
With all the tension swirling around our Chinatowns, as well as the unfortunate fire in Eastlake Little Saigon, we wanted to recenter ourselves and uplift our spirits together! During our Good Good Eatz Lunar New Year IG celebration, we invited some of our favorite “Town Ambassadors” to each take over a day of our feed to share with you their special thoughts, experiences and foodie recommendations around Lunar New Year. Feelmore Adult's Nenna Joiner and Jennifer K. Tran of the Oakland Vietnamese Chamber are featured here as well as Chinatown Pretty to document and celebrate the ingenuity and style of senior citizens in historic Chinatowns.
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M & A is AAPI Women Lead Jenny Wun’s favorite store for Asian snacks, over the counter eastern medicine, instant noodles and good company! It’s a family-run business and has been in Chinatown for over 20 years. We also shopped with AAPI Women Lead Mama Kim at Green Fish Seafood for seafood and produce. It’s always fresh and affordable! Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3)
We teamed up with Eat.Learn.Play Foundation again to surprise hundreds of kids and families with a holiday event filled with activities and games, free books, and amazing food prepared by local restaurants. Every family left with gift boxes full of books, gift cards, toys, food, and other fun and essential resources. It took a village of partners like Friends of Lincoln Square, Oakland Chinatown Chamber, Oakland Literacy Coalition, ACCFB, Community Kitchens, the Warriors and of course our amazing volunteers to pull this off! Click to View Posts (1) (2)
2021 Highlights
- Co-Creation of Summerfest Pokemon Go event at Clinton Park
- Creation of Mid Autumn Festival Lantern project with 1500 students and 4 schools, 2000 lanterns in Clinton and Lincoln Parks for mid-Sept. Connecting with 20 local businesses to participate
Oakland Little Saigon SUMMERFEST! Poke stops courtesy of Niantic were created to support AAPI small businesses. Asian Health Services provided on-site/in-Language testing and vaccinations! In addition to other fun activities like FREE backpacks for youth (courtesy of Amazon), Pokemon face painting, and retro video game consoles (brought to you by MADE Museum). Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
At the Mid-Autumn Festival, Champa Garden and Cam Huong provided the delicious meals, Nikki Fortunato Bas with the mini moon cakes, Cam Anh Deli with the che desserts and the hydration healer Jessie Nguyen kept us all cool and healthy with that gorgeous perilla tea and seaweed che. Big thanks to our partners Civic Design Studio, Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, Project Art Together, Oakland Trybe, and our sponsor Niantic Labs for making this possible!
1500 lanterns, 1500 happy faces painting away across Oakland schools. These lanterns were showcased during our Mid-Autumn Festival events at Clinton Park in Little Saigon and Lincoln Rec Center in Chinatown. Thank you to the 50+ teachers and principals participating to make this happen! Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
2021 Highlights
- LinkedIn ‘Cooking for Advocacy’ with chef Nora Haron @ Red Bay Coffee HQ
- Breaking Bread, an off the menu dinner that highlights 3 legacy restaurants in the Fruitvale showcasing their family's favorite dishes. An intimate gathering to eat, listen, learn, and share.
- Día de los Muertos Celebration
We were invited to share our work with a team at LinkedIn, and we couldn’t think of a better way to do that than through food. So we brought our friends Nora Haron and Chef Leilani together to share not just their recipes but also their stories and journeys as women of color in their industry. We brought Ms. Tarika Lewis to share her history and the legacy of solidarity that she has experienced in her decades of Oakland residency. Nora marries her love of mixing it up with her Indomex version of the Mexican wedding cookies in our second session of #cooking4solidarity with the second group of the LinkedIn team. Thanks to Keba Armand Konte of Red Bay Coffee for letting us into your brand-spanking new headquarters to shoot and our AAPI community for advocating to have these conversations within their companies.
We broke some bread, shared a table, explored the food and histories of 3 legacy businesses (El Huarache Azteca, Los Cocos, and Otaez Oakland). Shout out to our collaborator No Immigrants No Spice, Favianna Rodriguez for guiding us along and props to Rockwell Creative for holding it down with documenting tonight. Mucho gracias to Aunties Rosa, Socorro and Eva for pouring so much love into our bellies! Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3) (4)
The theme for the 2021 Dia de Los Muertos celebration was “Curando Corazones” (Healing Hearts). The festivities stretched from Fruitvale Avenue to 42nd Avenue on International Boulevard. Along with the altars, musical performances, and other activities - the focus is on the existing small businesses in the neighborhood. Thanks to everyone who came out to support our small businesses, honor the ancestors, connect with others and hopefully healed some hearts. Fruitvale has been one of the hardest hit districts during the pandemic, so the boost was much needed to uplift this neighborhood. Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3)
Th Akoma Outdoor Market at the Black Cultural Zone—food, fun, family and the future! Enjoy bountiful produce, fresh juices, food and much more from local Black and Brown farmers. Akoma Market has been beautiful to watch and support in its growth. There are 4 farms in the nearby vicinity, a largely untold fact that signals a new era for this vital part of Oakland. Click to View Posts (1) (2)
One of the youngest chefs we know that’s really doing it is the incredible Cooking Fiyah. From an amazing family of creatives including SpearItWorx and Madow Futur, young Fiyah is 16 years old and already running his own soul food catering business! He is interested in Pan African foods, ingredients and culture and was one of nearly 30 Black creatives coming together from different arts and creative disciplines on Sunday at the Black Cultural Zone Akoma Market, as a kickoff to the Art for the Movement ART + ACTIVATION series. Click to View Post (1)
Black-Owned business spotlight! Cocobreeze at High Street and Fairfax offers authentic cuisine from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Charlotte’s Web started out as a car detailing spot near the awesome Filipino spot Lucky Three Seven, and now the owner Joe’s family - Porsche and Andre, have branched out to bring ice cream happiness to Oakland! And you can find empanadas by Damel at BCZ if you’re looking for Afro-Brazilian Cuisine. Click to View Posts (1) (2) (3)
