GET INVOLVED
Host a fundraiser for Heart of Dinner
Help nourish our Elders, in your own way.
Heart of Dinner began in a 300-square-foot apartment kitchen in March 2020, with a simple goal: to make sure our Asian American Elders felt loved and fed. What started as an instinctive act of love has grown into a resilient network of care that now reaches more than 800 Elders each week across New York City and Los Angeles.
Public donations are what sustain the heart of our work — from sourcing culturally thoughtful meals to supporting our team and building the infrastructure that lets us show up, week after week, for our beloved Por Pors and Gong Gongs. When you host your own fundraiser, you become part of how this work continues.
Why this work matters
More than 1 in 3
Asian New Yorkers are low-income. Among Asian seniors, the rate is 8.7 percentage points higher than the citywide senior average.
52.6%
of Asian seniors with limited English proficiency are low-income — nearly double the rate of those without language barriers.
A public health crisis
The U.S. Surgeon General has named loneliness comparable in health impact to smoking. For the Asian American Elders we serve, cultural stigma and limited in-language care often mean isolation goes unaddressed.
Source: [U.S. Surgeon General, 2023]
How to host a fundraiser
01
Get inspired. Birthdays, supper clubs, fitness challenges, art sales, bake sales, comedy nights — or just because. The fundraisers that work best are rooted in something already meaningful to you.
02
Set up your page. Visit our Givebutter page and click "Fundraise with Us." Add a photo and a few honest sentences about why this matters to you. Choose to fundraise solo or as a team.
03
Share with your network. Givebutter generates a unique link and QR code, both mobile-friendly. Share where your community already is: text, group chats, social, email. Plan to share more than once.
04
Celebrate together. Watch the goal grow and the notes of love come in. Thank your supporters as gifts arrive. We read every message.
What your support makes possible
Funds one care package: a week of culturally thoughtful food, a hand-decorated bag, and a handwritten note in an Elder's native language.
$30
Funds five care packages where five Elders receive a week of nourishment and the small, deliberate signs that someone is thinking of them.
$150
Sustains weekly care for one Elder across six months. Steady presence is how trust is built.
$720
Funds a full week of care packages for roughly 50 Elders, including food, supplies, and the operational backbone behind it.
$1,500
Sustains weekly care for an Elder couple across a full year of weeks.
$3,000
Underwrites a full week of deliveries across one of our sites. A meaningful gift for a corporate team or group.
$10,000
Start with the toolkit
Our Fundraising Toolkit walks you through gift levels, talking points, hosting ideas, and tips for sharing with your community.
Set up on Givebutter
When you're ready, visit our Givebutter page to create your fundraiser. Add a photo and a few sentences about why this matters to you, then share with your network.
Need help?
Most questions are covered in the toolkit. For anything else, email us here and we'll get back to you within a few business days.
From our community of Big Hearts
We're grateful to every person and brand who's hosted a fundraiser for Heart of Dinner over the years. Below are a few examples to show the range of what's possible.
Judy Kim Foodstylist + Recipe Developer
RAISED $2,002
Hosted a raffle for her homemade Olive Oil Floral Confetti Cake at $10 a ticket. The layered olive oil cake was filled with lemon & kumquat curd and covered in swiss meringue buttercream confetti.
Natasha Pickowicz x Has Dac Biet (Never Ending Taste)
RAISED $1,500
Natasha Pickowicz’ Never Ending Taste partnered with greenmarket-rich Vietnamese street food focused Has Dac Biet at the Superiority Burger space offering irresistible combo deals of savory and sweet items, donating all proceeds to Heart of Dinner.
Here & There Collective
RAISED $100,000
The Here and There Collective (THAT Co.) X Dominique Fung and their collaboration with Artsy hosted The Artists Against Anti-Asian Violence Benefit Auction where 33 artists came together to auction their work for the fundraiser and proceeds from the auction were split and donated to The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Heart of Dinner 愛心餐, two non-profits active in the fight for safety, equality, and equity.
Partybus Bakeshop Scallion Buns
RAISED: Ongoing Fundraiser
Since 2020 One of our beloved restaurant partners, Partybus Bakeshop, who in addition to baking hundreds of loaves of milk bread and scallion buns each week for our care packages, has been dedicating 10% proceeds from each scallion bun purchased at their bakery. The proceeds from their buns go right back into providing direct support to the community.
Since 2020, the team behind Busboy has dedicated proceeds from their yearly Lunar New Year tee's to Heart of Dinner, along with a 10k donation from their collaboration with FRAME
Busboy
RAISED $10,000+
To spread awareness about the decreased foot traffic in the wake of the pandemic that small businesses in NYC’s Chinatown are having to struggle to stay afloat, and the community—especially immigrant and working class residents—are at risk from accelerating gentrification that displaces both people and businesses, Sublima Jewelry dedicated 100% of their sales within a 2-week period of one of their busiest holiday seasons to five organizations, and we are tremendously grateful to be chosen as one of them.
Sublima Jewelry
RAISED $6,360
Nancy Pappas dedicated all of the proceeds from her holiday sale of prints offered in sizes ranging from 8x10 to 16x20, on Lustre Paper, Canvas, and Framed were donated directly to benefit Heart of Dinner.
Nancy Pappas Illustrator
RAISED $200+
April Tsai of Wildewood Fibers created a custom-color as a love letter to the color red in our Chinese culture and history. The beautiful deep crimson red “Loving Chinatown” color was lovingly named after our initiative with all proceeds directed towards our work.
Wildewood Fibers
RAISED $403
The team behind Civil Arts and Christie's CSR came together to host an "At The Table" exhibition filled with beautiful pieces from over 30 incredible AAPI artists. Along with the exhibition, EastWest Bank sponsored a 100+page full color cookbook featuring stories, recipes, art, design, and essays with 100% of proceeds from the exhibition and the cookbook/artbook to support and continue Heart of Dinner’s.
Civil Arts X Christie's x EastWestBank
RAISED $100,000
Golden Diner hosted a raffle for two Yokkoyama Hat Market x Golden Diner Hat merch collab for $3 a ticket to support Heart of Dinner's mission.
Golden Diner
RAISED $1,000
Shared 50% of proceeds from all sales of their Lightscape Candle Light and Vignette Jewelry Collection. These collections and all their products are responsibly made in the US and designed to be seasonless.
Ladies & Gentlemen Studio
RAISED $588
Donated Sticker sales from first round and also Winson bakery stickers
Sticky Locals teamed up with Win Son Bakery, one of the go-to spots for Taiwanese fare in New York City, on a sticker of Win Son’s bear mascot designed by Vancouver-based designer and product manager Aiken Lao (original bear graphic by @massimomongiardo) with all proceeds funding our efforts at $5 a sticker.
Sticky Locals x Win Son Bakery
RAISED $401
Steady worked closely with their friends @eighteightsix @canalstreetmarket @myeggloo @kopitiamnyc @madamevonyc @nowon.nyc @veryfreshnoodles @whitenoisecoffeeco @winsonbrooklyn to create a piece that better defines what community means. ‘FIGHT FOR US’ is their rallying call aimed to encourage our communities to protect those in need with all proceeds funding our efforts.
Steady Tee: Fight For Us NYC Relief Initiative
RAISED $2,080
