The December issue of the Yarrow Newsletter is out now! Read more below and donate to our fundraiser if you'd like to support more issues in the future! Recommended reads: "各地冬至吃甚麼?" - What do people in different regions eat on Winter Solstice ? 1) Dumplings 🥟 2) Wonton 🥟 3) Red bean soup 🔴 4) Tangyuan ⚪ 5) Tofu (braised tofu with green onion) ⬜ 6) Osmanthus wine 🥂 7) Cured meat sticky rice 🍚 8) Mutton soup 🐑 9) Food in "black" 🐦‍⬛ Check the newsletter for all the stories and more! 📰 🎄

Read the July 2024 Edition of our Yarrow Senior Newsletter! In this issue, we introduce two new Yarrow staff members, go over our nutrition workshop, introduce our farmers' market nutrition coupon program, bring tips on how to stay cool during the heat wave, and so much more. Download and read the newsletter below:

Read the September 2024 Edition of our Yarrow Senior Newsletter! In this issue, we cover Yarrow seniors' exciting dragon boat outing, a late summer farmers market visit featuring big mushrooms, our partnership with neighbourhood mainstay, Ovaltine Cafe, Yarrow's medical advocacy workshop for Chinese seniors, and so much more! Download and read it now below.

Learn more about the work Yarrow has done in 2022-23 and review our financial statements from the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Join Yarrow in celebrating the year of the wood dragon by donating funds to support our work with low income Chinatown seniors. Read below to find out how your contributions help and how to get tax receipts! Update February 1 2024: Tax receipts now available! If you would like to donate $100 or more and receive a charitable tax receipt, you are welcome to donate to Yarrow through our partner organization the Network of Inner City Community Services Society (NICCSS). All donations processed by NICCSS will go towards Yarrow’s work in supporting Chinese seniors through our collaborative programs. IMPORTANT: When making a donation through the NICCSS PayPal page, please include your full name, full address and phone number to receive a tax receipt. To ensure your donation reaches us, please include "Yarrow'' in the note section. If you prefer to send a cheque, please make it payable to: “Network of Inner City Community Services”, note "Yarrow" in the memo, and mail to #200-739 Gore Avenue Vancouver B.C. V6A 2Z9 Canada. Your giving goes a long way: $25 will  feed one senior for a week , providing them with access to nutritious, culturally appropriate, home-delivered groceries. $50 will allow Yarrow to continue operating in a central space in Chinatown , where seniors can access Yarrow services including food rescue pick-ups, appointments to discuss their casework with our outreach team, and guidance of tech support and tech literacy. $100  will  provide safe community spaces  for over 50 seniors to commune weekly and monthly for art and educational workshops, ranging in topics from disability justice to poetry and tenancy rights $250 will connect 100 seniors to our Chinese Seniors’ Hub  morning exercise group, which runs twice a week,  supporting seniors’ social connectivity, physical health, and leadership skills. $500  will  empower a senior to overcome cultural and language barriers  through medical  accompaniment and interpretation support at hospital and specialist appointments. $750 will fund a youth-led intergenerational event to build meaningful programming to connect seniors members with youth volunteers, building enriching bridges of knowledge and cultural sharing. Why contribute to Yarrow? We provide  one-on-one support for seniors  who face language and cultural barriers to accessing government services to meet their housing, health, and income needs; We  provide free, culturally safe case management services in Chinese  in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. We are one of the only two organizations offering this service, even though Chinatown and Strathcona have  32% and 45%  of people speaking Chinese as their main language at home respectively We  help seniors access basic healthcare  by providing medical accompaniment and interpretation support at their hospital and specialist appointments. We deliver fully subsidized, culturally appropriate groceries to seniors and at-risk community members  in the Chinatown and Strathcona community; Why are donations important? Your donations matter because they make it possible for us to be directly accountable to our community and the needs of our seniors and youth. Every donation and sharing of this campaign helps significantly. Non-profits are accountable to the people who fund them. When we apply for a grant, we must meet the program requirements set forth by the funder and actualize their priorities. While Yarrow is grateful for the grant support we receive, unfortunately funder priorities do not always align with the needs of our community. Furthermore, funder priorities may change from year to year, even though the core services and programs that our community needs have not changed. Donations are not only a financial action, but also a political action. We believe that building a broad base of individual donors from the community is an important way to sustain our work. We are now reaching out to our community again and asking you to help us continue to grow so we can focus on serving and empowering our youth and seniors! Our long-term vision Our vision is of a Chinatown that is intergenerational and thriving, with accessible and culturally relevant services and an environment that cherishes our seniors and youth. To make this vision real, we are working to build our organization’s capacity to serve and empower marginalized seniors in Chinatown through continual . Our priorities for 2024 include continuing our core services and programming to support low income seniors, revamping our food programming to focus on food sovereignty and food justice, and advocating for community spaces and affordable housing in Vancouver Chinatown. Visit  https://www.yarrowsociety.ca/programs to learn more about our core programs and services. We recognize that our community’s service needs come from systemic inadequacies and inequality. While it has been long been acknowledged that racialized people and people who do not speak English as their first language face more obstacles to accessing vital services and community connections, these obstacles still remain. Long-term inequalities require us to build power as a community and demand long-term solutions. For this, Yarrow will need your continued support. This lunar new year, we hope you will join us in giving our seniors the gift of nourishment,  health, and social connection. Share this campaign with your friends and family Once you've completed your donation, we ask that you share and spread the word about Weaving Hearts 世代相承 心心相繫 Fundraiser on your frequented platforms! Once you check out, you will automatically see the option to share on a wide variety of socials.  Every engagement helps us slowly reach our fundraising goal just a little bit more. All illustrations for this campaign are done by Haru Chiu, in collaboration with Sunny Chiu. How to receive charitable tax receipts We are finalizing our tax receipt donation process and will update once this is available in early Februrary! This fundraiser is taking place on the traditional, ancestral, unceded, and occupied territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm. sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and the sel̓íl̓witulh Nations.

Read Vol. 2, Issue No. 5 of our Yarrow Senior Newsletter! In our final issue of the year, we cover the food literacy workshops that nourishing hearts food programs put on with dietitian Amy Yiu and her students. The issue also covers Powell Street Festival's forum about public space in the DTES, and FairPharmacare workshops with pharmacist Benny Sio. Download and read the newsletter below:

Read Vol. 2, Issue No. 4 of our Yarrow Senior Newsletter! In this issue we return from our newsletter break with a colourful recollection of activities between May to October. We cover some warm weather activities the seniors participated in, Our Shared Tapestry: Black and Chinese (Re) Archiving Workshop led by Ruby Smith Díaz, and The Gain Wah project. Download and read the newsletter below:

Led by multidisciplinary artist and youth educator Ruby Smith Díaz, this 3 part workshop series will guide participants in the art of cyanotype printing and fotobordado embroidery storytelling to visually depict the histories, relationships and future visions of Black and Chinese communities in Vancouver's Strathcona and Downtown Eastside area. We are seeking youth and seniors from Vancouver’s Black and Chinese communities for a collaborative art project that tells the stories of both communities’ shared histories in the area. There are 20 spots available; each participant will be compensated with a modest honoraria for their time. Participants must be able to commit to a total of 3 x 3 hour workshops during the following dates: Workshop 1: August 19, 11am - 2pm Workshop 2: August 20, 11am - 2pm Workshop 3: September 8, 5pm - 8pm At each workshop, interpretations in Cantonese and Mandarin will be provided. Light refreshments will also be provided. Masks are required at every workshop. Email programs@yarrowsociety.ca for more information and registration.

Occupy space, make art, and sing your favourite Chinese tunes with us at 105 Keefer on Friday, July 28th 6-8pm! Despite Beedie receiving approval for their condo development plans at 105 Keefer, we will continue to push back harder. We invite you to join us in occupying the space at Chinatown Memorial Plaza with our culture, voices, and creative energy. Get ready for a night of collage and karaoke, where we will collectively reimagine 105 Keefer. Bring your favorite collage supplies, photographs, and magazines to create collages that reflect your visions of 105 Keefer, which go beyond Beedie's gentrifying condos. The goal of this event is to demonstrate to various levels of government that 105 Keefer has the potential to become so much more for the community than just luxury condos, and that they should obtain the land for community use instead. We will remind the government of the shadow that their condominium would cast not only on the Chinese Memorial Plaza, but also the Chinatown community. Re-envisioning 105 Keefer is an event done in collaboration between SaveChinatownYVR x Yarrow Society. Things to bring: Your own chair: Some seating will be provided, but seniors and disabled folks will be prioritized. Water to stay hydrated Collage supplies such as personal photos of Chinatown that will help you build a vision of what 105 Keefer and Chinatown could be Wear your best anti-gentrification fit Want to volunteer? We are looking for drivers, photographers/videographers, facilitators with language capacity (Canto/Mando), and floaters! To volunteer, please reach out to volunteer@yarrowsociety.ca COVID Safety Information For the health and safety of all our community members (especially seniors, disabled and immunocompromised folks), we highly encourage you to wear a face mask. Hand sanitizer will be provided. Accessibility Information Transit Chinatown is accessible by transit via skytrain. The closest skytrain station is Stadium-Chinatown. Seating Provided seating is prioritized for seniors and disabled folks. For guaranteed seating, please bring a chair. Consider bringing additional chairs or stools for others. Water Please bring your own water to keep hydrated. Bathrooms There are gendered bathrooms at the Chinatown Plaza mall across from the Chinatown Memorial Plaza. Language: There will be volunteers to help translate for Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. This event takes place on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Specifically, Chinatown is situated on the Squamish land Luk'luk'i. Our struggles are connected.

Yarrow is hiring! We’re looking for a Chinese Seniors Hub Coordinator to join our team. This position is a great fit for anyone who's passionate about grassroots organizing, intergenerational relationship building, and supporting low-income Chinese seniors. See the the full job description on our Jobs page! Applications close Friday, July 28th at 11:59PM PST. Photo Credit: Taitania Higuchi

Do you love what Yarrow does? Do you have experience in law, finance/accounting or human resources? Join our Board of Directors! Yarrow is accepting applications for our Board of Directors from now until August 16th. Applicants with lived experience of structural inequity to apply, and in particular, those who are QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) & 少 數民族 (non-Han ethnic minorities) & 臺灣原住民 (Indigenous peoples of Taiwan) are strongly encouraged to apply. 🔗 To learn more and to apply please visit our job postings page.

Beedie may have gotten their development permit approved for 105 Keefer in Chinatown, but as long as the gentrifier condo building isn't built, it's not over. We'll continue to fight on. We'll occupy and reclaim space loudly at 105 Keefer to protest with our culture, voices, and bodies. Join us for Chinese School at 105 Keefer in Chinatown where Mark Lee 阿聰 ("Ah Cong") Mark Lee of Onion Language Centre will teach you Chinese language and phrases centred around anti-gentrification and community power (including phrases featured at the 105 Keefer protest rallies!). This is a free family-friendly event where all ages are welcome. Seating and water will not be provided, so please bring your own chair, refreshments, and come on down to Chinatown to learn Chinese! When: Sunday, July 9 at 2 to 4pm Where: Chinatown Memorial Plaza next to 105 Keefer Cost: Free (RSVP link in bio) Bring your own chair (and another for someone else) Family-friendly. All ages welcome. COVID Safety Information For the health and safety of all our community members (especially seniors, disabled and immunocompromised folks), we are encourage you to wear a face mask (preferably KN95, KF94 or N95). Accessibility Information Transit Chinatown is accessible by transit via Skytrain. The closest Skytrain station is Stadium-Chinatown. Seating Seating will not be provided. You must bring your own chair. Consider bringing additional chairs or stools for others. Water Please bring your own water to keep hydrated. Bathrooms There are gendered bathrooms at the Chinatown Plaza mall across from the Chinatown Memorial Plaza.