Product Lead Ling Song talks about SCL’s mission and how they have helped local businesses

Over the last year and a half, the pandemic fractured neighborhoods and communities all over New York. One community in particular was hit especially hard, Chinatown. Not only was death and sorrow spreading like wildfire, but blame was being placed. An estimated 50,000 Chinese individuals live in Manhattan’s Chinatown, and as the deadly rumors about Wuhan’s role in the spread of COVID-19, Chinatown saw the ramifications of those rumors. Beyond restaurants and businesses being shut down, the people of Chinatown were facing another hardship: racism.

Xenophobia swept over Chinatown and it’s people (Asian Americans) causing more harm than just COVID-19. Already fighting a pandemic, the neighborhood had to fight cruelty and judgment as well. Chinatown restaurants were struggling to survive with their doors forced shut and loans denied due to requirements that were difficult to meet by immigrant-run microbusinesses. The people of this vibrant and culturally diverse neighborhood needed to help lift one another and save what once was a hotspot in downtown Manhattan.

Along came Send Chinatown Love. SCL was born with the need to help these businesses strategize and reevaluate their business plans to build a better future and a lasting business model for each specific brand. The SCL team has worked with 34 Chinatown restaurant merchants helping with everything including branding, marketing, logo and menu design, website development, resources and grant applications. SCL goes above and beyond to ensure these businesses have an opportunity to rebuild successfully.

Ling Song is the product lead for Send Chinatown Love meaning she works with engineering and design to help businesses build technical features including websites and apps. “We’re trying to focus on breaking down the barriers that prevent Asian owned businesses from achieving their business goals,” said Song.

We’re trying to focus on breaking down the barriers that prevent Asian owned businesses from achieving their business goals

New York City’s Chinatown is off the grid. “They’re pretty unique because they’re cash only businesses,” said Song. “They operate on pen and paper, so they have a disproportionate amount of access to technology, as well as language barriers, so they were just not necessarily in the best position to come out on top from this pandemic.” The pro-bono business consulting SCL has provided has been essential in the restoring of these businesses in Chinatown. The goal is to give these merchants the tools, infrastructure and information they need to withstand any possible future struggles. “Maybe we’ll build them a website and then a member of the business development team will sit down and teach them how to update the website from time to time so that they know how to do that themselves moving forward,” said Song. “Maybe it’s teaching them how to use Instagram and use digital marketing and know how to brand themselves. Maybe it’s about redesigning their menu to make it more accessible to both Chinese and English speakers to drive more business to them. It’s really very broad in terms of the scope of services that we can provide them, but essentially whatever the merchants need, we will try our best to help them with.”

Send Chinatown Love has held various campaigns to raise awareness and funds for their businesses, now having raised almost $1.1 million. Song is a full-time employee at Via, so along with the other volunteers of SCL, working for the organization is a voluntary role.

Light Up Chinatown was the first campaign to really help the organization make a name for themselves. Raising over $47,000, the project was in effort to bring beauty back to Chinatown. “We wanted to beautify Chinatown and make it a very welcoming place,” said Song. “We wanted people to continue coming back to Chinatown; that’s the most sustainable way to maintain these businesses, through regular customers.”

Light Up Chinatown’s mission was to install permanent lantern light fixtures around the neighborhood. One block of lanterns costs $23,500, including light price, installation costs and custom designed lanterns from Pearl River Mart.

The first lantern goal was to hang them on Mott from Canal to Bayard. The second goal was on Bayard from Mott to Bowery. Both SCL goals were hit and the lanterns currently have brought a new light to Chinatown.

“They have become very photogenic spots and we see a lot of people taking pictures and I think it really just was a project to bring hope back to the community, to make people feel safe,” explained Song.

We wanted people to continue coming back to Chinatown; that’s the most sustainable way to maintain these businesses, through regular customers.

SCL’s biggest campaign to date has been Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) Gift-a-Meal. In an effort to continue helping their community and the merchants they have partnered with, SCL committed over $1000,000 in donations to the Gift-a-Meal initiative. “We partner with a merchant and we partner with a community organization or nonprofit, and we essentially buy meals from the merchant and donate them to the committee,” said Song. “It’s a double impact campaign because we buy meals from the merchant and donate them to the committee so that community members in need can get free meals. We have these donations if not weekly, multiple times a month.” These food donations do more than just provide meals, they bring a sense of community and home to these people. “These foods are culturally sensitive, so for example, in particular with the Asian elderly community, these foods are foods that they’re more comfortable with and they’re not as much of a Western palate, so they’re very grateful to receive foods that they’re they’re used to and meals that feel more like home for them.” Through the APAHM campaign, as well as their general ongoing Gift-a-Meal fundraising, SCL has donated 29,016 meals to people in need.

Ling Song and the team at Send Chinatown Love are continuously brainstorming ways to help build up Chinatown and help bring back longevity in the businesses. Helping these businesses survive and continue surviving successfully is the main goal and helping the community be a part of that growth is an added benefit. “We really see ourselves as uplifting and empowering the businesses and trying to bring the community together to allow us to do that.”

We really see ourselves as uplifting and empowering the businesses and trying to bring the community together to allow us to do that.