Cherish Chinatown Challenge Results
This November, Tufts’ Cherish Chinatown organized a challenge for the university community. The goal? Support small businesses in Boston’s Chinatown, the vibrant and diverse home of our Health Sciences Campus. Like all Chinatowns across the US, Boston’s Chinatown has been negatively impacted by the combined effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and anti-Asian sentiment. Many Asian-owned restaurants have been forced to close their doors permanently. As neighbors and friends of Chinatown, we want to show up for our neighborhood. To this end, we hosted a fun and delicious month-long event: the Cherish Chinatown Challenge.
To enter the challenge, members of the Tufts community ordered from locally-owned Chinatown restaurants, bakeries, and stores during the month of November. After they made purchases, they entered into the weekly Cherish Chinatown Challenge raffle. Twenty winners received restaurant gift cards and one grand-prize winner received $200 to a restaurant of their choice in Chinatown.
The inaugural challenge results:
- Tufts University students, faculty, and staff members logged 757 purchases at small businesses in Boston’s Chinatown during the month-long Cherish Chinatown Challenge.
- The purchases were made at 93 different small businesses in the neighborhood.
- 78 members of the Tufts Community correctly answered a Chinatown Atlas trivia question correct. Questions were written by the Cherish Chinatown Challenge student leadership team and were part of the educational component of the challenge.
- The office of Government & Community Relations purchased 40 gift cards from local small businesses in Chinatown that were used as prizes for challenge winners and student volunteers.
Raffle Drawings
- Grand prize winner: Nikhil Illa, M22, School of Medicine
- 1st week winners:
- Maria Patricia Asuncion, D25, School of Dental Medicine
- Ramanpreet Kaur, D25, School of Dental Medicine
- Hector Nunez, Student, School of Medicine
- Amy Yee, Faculty, School of Medicine
- Zihan Yu, Student, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
- 2nd week winners:
- Monica Awada, D25, School of Dental Medicine
- Bridgette Ho, M23, School of Medicine
- Li Ling, Graduate School of of Arts & Sciences
- Haley Jane Sicard, D22, School of Dental Medicine
- Daniel Won, D25, School of Dental Medicine
- 3rd week winners:
- Hannah Abbe, School of Medicine Physician Assistant Program
- Clement Hsu, D24, School of Dental Medicine
- Anne Hu, E25, School of Engineering
- Ivy Lee, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
- Austin Steward, M25, School of Medicine
- 4th week winners:
- Jessica Chang, M22, School of Medicine
- Michael Chin, Faculty, School of Medicine
- Franchesca Choi, School of Medicine
- Eugenia Cojocaru, D25, School of Dental Medicine
- Tiffany Xie, A22, School of Arts and Sciences
Cherish Chinatown is a Tufts University initiative that was started in spring 2021 by dental and medical students with support from the office of Government and Community Relations and Tisch College. The aim is to (1) educate Tufts students and employees about the history and cultural importance of Boston’s Chinatown and to (2) organize community engagement opportunities that support Chinatown residents, small businesses, and non-profit organizations in conjunction with Chinatown leaders.
Student Leaders
- Lindsey Bell, M24
- Ashley Jin, A24 and Tisch Scholar at the Pao Arts Center
- Yan Lin, D23
- Vaughan Skinker, M24
- Maya Sunar, D24
- Venus Tran, D24
- Esther Yi, D25
Staff Advisors
- Leah Boudreau, Community Program Specialist, Government and Community Relations
- Jennifer Greer-Morrissey, Civic Life Manager, Health Sciences, Tisch College of Civic Life
- Marc Maggiore, Staff Assistant, Government and Community Relations
- Shirley Mark, Director of Community Partnerships, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life
- Nancy Marks, Tisch/TUSDM Community Service Program Coordinator, School of Dental Medicine
- Liza Perry, Deputy Director, Government and Community Relations