克利夫兰及周边地区消息

我們期待未來克利夫蘭有更美好的亞洲城

記華人隊MidTown負責人之一Karis Tzeng曾加憐

   衆所周知,對於大多數人來説,冠狀病毒的影響始于 2020 年 3 月,包括旅行禁令、學校關閉等。冠狀病毒 引發的人們恐懼心理導致從 1 月和 2 月開始,亞洲城商人的生意嚴重下降,Karis Tzeng看到了這個情况,她表示:近50家亞洲人擁有的企業中有許多是小型家族企業,甚至在國家關閉之前就暫時關閉了,這給整個社區蒙上了一層不安全感。我們身在亞洲城,眞的很想做一些事情來滿足附近亞裔也包括其他族裔的人們對的食物獲取的需求,並在心理層面上創建一些社區能相互理解相互交流的機會,幫助人們不感到孤立和孤獨。
Karis Tzeng不僅説而且用行動做到:Tzeng 率先發起了 Feed AsiaTown 快閃食品配送計劃。每隔一周,MidTown Cleveland 與附近的餐館合作,每次購買100份盒裝餐幫助餐廳生意,然後將食物免費分發給居民。
  她説:“這也成爲與居民進行登記並做諸如分發口罩之類的事情的機會。”
   Karis Tzeng 本科畢業于賓夕法尼亞大學,並在密歇根大學獲得了碩士學位,然後在密歇根州安娜堡和費城唐人街鍛煉了她的社區發展技能。更重要的是她熱愛與人相處。她的組織領導人Joyce Huang 説她:在 Karis Tzeng的帶領下,MidTown Cleveland 已爲 AsiaTown 項目籌集了近 200,000 美元,包括用于 COVID-19 救濟、商業支持、語言訪問和翻譯、公共基礎設施和文化節目的資金。
   Karis Tzeng 富有創造力,她善良、善解人意,她用體貼和包容的態度對待亞洲社區發展協會,社會承認她的工作和能力,並給予她很高的贊譽。
   我們期待未來克利夫蘭有更美好的亞洲城。

Karis Tzeng,
   Director of AsiaTown Initiatives, MidTown Cleveland Inc.
For most of us, the impact of coronavirus began in March 2020, with travel bans, school closings and lockdowns. The racial fear and mistrust spawned by COVID, however, caused “a serious decrease in business for AsiaTown merchants beginning in January and February,” according to Karis Tzeng, a community development specialist with MidTown Cleveland who focuses her work on the near East Side neighborhood.
   Many of its 40 Asian-owned businesses are small, family-run establishments that had temporarily closed even before state shutdowns, Tzeng explained, casting a cloud of insecurity over the entire community. “We really wanted to do something to both meet the needs of food access in the neighborhood and to kind of create some community connection points, because we were hearing that a lot of residents were feeling isolated and alone,” she said.
In response, Tzeng spearheaded the Feed AsiaTown pop-up food distribution program. Every other week, MidTown Cleveland partners with neighborhood restaurants, gives them a boost by buying boxed meals and then distributes those to residents for free.
   “It also became an opportunity to sort of check in with residents and do things like pass out masks,” she said.
   For the newish AsiaTown Initiatives — launched when Tzeng joined MidTown Cleveland in June 2019 — Tzeng said the pandemic provided an unexpected boost to her fledging efforts to foster relationships with the residents and businesses.
Tzeng did her undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania and earned a master’s degree from the University of Michigan before honing her community development skills in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in Philadelphia’s Chinatown.
   Under Tzeng’s leadership, MidTown Cleveland has secured close to $200,000 for AsiaTown projects, including funding for COVID-19 relief, business support, language access and translation, public infrastructure and cultural programming, said the nonprofit’s vice president, Joyce Huang.
   “She is creative, kind, empathetic and scrappy, while also approaching community development with thoughtfulness and inclusion, meaning that she is able to build upon relationships and partnerships,” Huang said.
— Judy Stringer