Safety with Sound Recap

By: Bang Co, DC Programs Manager
Photos courtesy of Bang Co

Throughout the months of August and September, the AALEAD team worked diligently to prepare and distribute goodie bags filled with PPE and other safety tools. Some of these tools included a personal Birdie safety alarm, a safety palm card in different languages, and a whistle from the Yellow Whistle campaign (items depicted below). This initiative, known as “Safety with Sound”, was developed to help equip our community members against the increasing anti-AAPI hate and violence towards AAPI senior citizens. In addition, we also wanted to leverage this project as a way to encourage community members to get vaccinated against COVID-19. In each bag, we were able to add resources from DC Health regarding back-to-school and COVID-19 vaccinations.

This was a great opportunity for our community to come together to raise awareness on the discrimination and xenophobia AAPIs are facing and to show solidarity in our mission to uplift the AAPI community in the DMV area. Through the help of several community partners, we were able to successfully create and distribute over 300 safety goodie bags to the community. We are incredibly grateful for these partners and their contributions to the “Safety with Sound” initiative. Thank you to our friends at the DC Mayor’s Office on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs (MOAPIA), the 1882 Foundation, the Yellow Whistle Campaign, and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. 

AALEAD, along with our community partners, distributed these 300+ Safety with Sound bags at several  in-person events throughout Chinatown and  DC community events. Our first event was at the Chinese Community Church on August 26th. At Adams Morgan Day on September 12th, our partner at the 1882 Foundation, Wei Gan, helped distribute more  bags.  We returned to the Chinese Community Church on September 15th to distribute to a crowd of over 100 residents.  Finally, we gave away the last of our 30 bags at the Mid-Autumn Festival (hosted by 1882 Foundation, the OCA Asian Pacific American Advocates DC chapter, and the Taiwanese American Professionals DC chapter) on September 24th.

These goodie bags were put together by Ari Pak, Liana Shivers, Natie Hara, and Krystal Pham. A huge “THANK YOU” to each of them for the time they have put into helping us make this project possible! On behalf of the AALEAD family, we wanted to share our most heartfelt gratitude to all of our community partners, volunteers, and community members for their support and participation in this effort to promote “safety with sound”!