George Chan stays overnight to protect 5,000 food bags

(SAN FRANCISCO) The 5,000-bag food giveaway event has become a well-recognized tradition for the Chinese Newcomers Service Center for decades. The 2024 food drive was even more unique and challenging for George Chan, Executive Director of the center. He decided to stay overnight at the Cameron House playground to ensure the safety of each $75-valued food bag.

Founded in 1969, the Chinese Newcomers Service Center with a main office located in San Francisco Chinatown has substantially served the Chinese language speaking new immigrants with a variety of programs including free tax service, naturalization, voter service, employment referral, vocational training. Most of their clients are seniors and underserved community members.

In 1993, the Chinese Newcomers Service Center launched its first food giveaway during Thanksgiving to provide free turkeys to 500 underserved community members and families.

Several years later, the Thanksgiving turkey giveaway event was transformed into a food drive to offer free Asian food which would meet more of the daily needs of many immigrants whom they served.

In the meantime, the scale of the food drive has become bigger and bigger, from 500 bags to 1,000 bags, 3,000 in 2011 and reaching 5,000 bags in 2014.

Chan became the Executive Director of the Chinese Newcomers Service Center in 2016. He is a tax expert and licensed enrolled agent (EA) at the federal level by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). EA is the highest credential awarded by the IRS.

Chan is committed to serving the immigrant community at the Chinese Newcomers Service Center for 20 years. One of the inspirations was from his past experience as a new immigrant seeking service at the center and he was benefited from the service.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Chan came to San Francisco with his family in 2003 when there was a SARS pandemic in Hong Kong. He majored in Computer Science in college before he arrived in San Francisco.

He first enrolled in City College of San Francisco and later graduated from San Francisco State University with a bachelor degree in Accounting.

Chan was also employed to pay for his tuition at college. When he got some problems about his paychecks in his early days as a new immigrant, he went to the Chinese Newcomers Service Center in Chinatown seeking help. The problem was resolved and the staff invited Chan to serve at the center as a volunteer. It was how Chan first began serving at the Chinese Newcomers Service Center 20 years back.

After working for some time as a volunteer helping others at the Chinese Newcomers Service Center, Chan was invited to join the center as a full-time staff specialized in tax service. Years later, Chan was the Acting Director prior to becoming its Executive Director in 2016.

During Chan's tenure, the annual free tax service has been extraordinarily popular among the monolingual immigrants. Long lines of people waiting for service could be seen at the Chinese Newcomers Service Center everyday before the April 15 tax date.

When Chan took over the leadership at the center in 2016, its annual food drive has already reached 5,000 food bags. "It has always been not easy to raise funds for the food drive," said Chan.

In the beginning, the funds for hosting food giveaways were primarily from private donations and their annual fundraising events, according to Chan. In recent years, the San Francisco Human Services Agency under the City's Department of Social Services has committed $150,000 to the food drive each year.

Due to the number of underserved community members to receive the food bags growing dramatically over the years, the venues for hosting the food giveaways have been moved from places to places in Chinatown.

"It was at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall on Stockton Street many years ago. We had held the event at the Willie Woo Woo Wong Playground. It was held at Portsmouth Square for many years prior and after the pandemic," said Chan. "During the COVID pandemic in 2020, we didn't have the food drive and it was the only year that we cancelled the event."

In 2023, the food giveaways took place at Portsmouth Square which is operated and managed by the City's Recreation and Park Department. However, the center was not able to get the permit for the 2024 event. Instead the food drive was moved to the playground of Cameron House on Sacramento Street this year for the first time.

"Each food bag contains more than 20 food items worth more than $75, and is filled with essential cooking items that are popular among Chinese families," said Chan who and his staff members selected the items for the food bags. Rice, soy sauce, cooking oil, seasonings, rice noodles, rock sugar, biscuits, and other Chinese food were included.

One day prior to the food drive, Chan and his staff members as well as over 100 volunteers unloaded the food and filled up 5,000 food bags at the Cameron House from morning until 9pm.

Before Chan and his staff planned to go home late at night, Chan witnessed two young men in a pickup truck parked around the Cameron House for a long while and stared at 5,000 food bags piled like a mountain in the playground.

"I needed to make sure 5,000 food bags were safe for the next day's food drive for our community. I made an immediate decision to stay overnight with another volunteer," Chan said with a smile. "The total value of all 5,000 food bags are over $375,000. We are glad that everything was fine overnight."

Chan was nervous before all 5,000 food bags were safely given to participants who signed up through 20 non-profit organizations which serve the Chinese community.

5,000 participants were notified to come to pick up their food bags with tickets at various hours from 10am to 5pm. There were requirements to receive the free food bags. The food drive were designed to serve the residents of San Francisco only. Only one participant was allowed at one address. Proof of low income, like Medi-Cal or Cal-Fresh cards, were needed when they signed up. The majority of participants were seniors and people with disabilities.

Under Chan's leadership since 2016, the Chinese Newcomers Service Center's annual food giveaways have been able to raise more funds.

"We understand the importance of food to low-income community members," Chan said. "Despite the soaring prices and some food chain supply issues from Asian countries, we are able to purchase and solicit 5,000 food bags. We hope we may provide some relief to them during these years with high inflation."