Every decision starts with a simple question: What would our own grandparents love? How could we make them feel truly seen and fully nourished in heart, soul, spirit, and body? This has been our founding guiding compass from the very beginning, and it remains so today. We reach Asian American older adults who live alone, on low-to-no income, and in significantly underresourced neighborhoods. Each home delivered care package includes about three days of culturally thoughtful meals, a hand decorated bag, and a handwritten love note in their native language. With every Heart of Dinner care pacakge, we remind our Elders: We see you. We love you. 

Donor support enables Heart of Dinner to purchase meals, ingredients, and groceries from hyperlocal Asian owned, women owned, and LGBTQIA+ owned businesses and trusted distributors. This keeps dollars flowing to neighborhood restaurants, bakeries, markets, and farms, many of whom first partnered with us in 2020. When we grow our reach to Elders, we grow opportunity for the businesses that nourish them.

Writing love notes and decorating bags began as love letters our founders wrote to each other as life partners of over a decade, naturally extending into their care for Elders. When lockdowns left so many people restless at home and searching for ways to help, we opened this practice to the wider community. The response was immediate. Within weeks, people across the city and around the world were creating from their homes, and that momentum has never slowed. Today, years after the pandemic, families, coworkers, and classmates of all ages and backgrounds still sit side by side, crafting together from homes, classrooms, offices, and community gatherings. Volunteers often share that this practice stirs up memories of their own grandparents and eases their own loneliness, finding meaning in connecting with Elders they may never meet. Each bag and note is signed from a collective "we," so when our Elders open their care packages, they see messages from many different people and feel held by a community that stretches across generations and cultures.

All surplus food purchased for our Elders' care packages and volunteer meals is shared with neighborhood community fridges and local food pantries. During the pandemic, we also rescued and redistributed food from restaurants, local farms, and distributors facing disruptions, carefully sorting every box to select ingredients that would be comforting and culturally familiar for our Elders. What we gathered nourished our Elders, supported our restaurant partners, or was passed along to neighbors in need. The practice of nourishing our neighbors by sharing surplus with community fridges remains part of how we operate today.