May was a very busy month for Ricesticks and Tea, the Boston area's only food pantry program specifically serving the Asian community and providing culturally appropriate foods in a linguistically accessible setting. RST supplements the food needs of low-income families, providing staples in Asian households, such as jasmine rice, various noodles, soy sauce, cooking oil, preserved and canned vegetables, dried red or mung beans, and the like.
We had over 30 enthusiastic volunteers at May's food pantry day, which took place bright and early on Saturday, May 8th, from 7:45-10am. Eleven of those volunteers this month were NAAAP members, who signed up and helped with an array of tasks, including bagging food for distribution, checking clients in, giving out the food, helping clients carry their heavy bags up the flight of stairs from RST's basement location, and setting up and putting away chairs. Volunteers used their bilingual skills to help/answer questions from RST clients, who are predominantly non- or limited-English speaking, got a good work out by helping clients to lift carts and bags, etc.
Thank you to participating NAAAP volunteers: Calvin Lee, NAAAP community service co-chair, Hsiu-Hsien Chiang, Tommy Fang, Kayleigh Huang, Lick Lai, Zin Ma, David Sadeli, Maling Szeto, Timmy Wong, Vincent Uy, and Anita Yip.
RST is entirely volunteer run, and relies on individual and private sources of funding to support its work. For more information about RST and how to support it, check out their website at www.tuftsmedicalcenter.org/commhealth or email at ricesticksandtea@gmail.com.
Author: Sherry Dong, also a NAAAP member, is a primary organizer of Ricesticks and Tea.
