Written by Ida Eva Zielinska
Published #74 | Fall 2024 Issue
The Starbucks Coffee Company team volunteering at Tzu Chi USA Northeast Regions’s food pantry in Flushing, New York, on April 5, 2024, poses for a group picture. Photo/Daniel Ferrara
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You know, we see people in need all the time, and we just want to help. This is just a great opportunity for us to do so.
While it was already spring in New York City, the temperature on April 5, 2024, was brisk, especially if spending a lot of time outside. However, that didn’t stop Daniel Lee, along with other Starbucks employees dressed in winter attire, from arriving at the Tzu Chi USA Northeast Region Office in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens borough to volunteer at the outdoor food pantry Tzu Chi has been running there since 2018.
The morning began with a group circle, where all the volunteers serving that day joined hands and swayed in unison as they listened to a motivational Tzu Chi song with lyrics that encourage “love and care for all.” Then, the Starbucks volunteers, along with all the others, helped bundle fresh produce into single portions they would distribute to the several hundred people expected, who were already beginning to line up outside the Northeast Region Office before the official start of the food pantry at 10:00 AM, a long queue extending to the corner and back, filling the street.
The food pantry is operated on Fridays all year round. Fruit, vegetables, and dry food are distributed. The pantry partners with Food Bank for New York City, United Way, NYC’s Human Resources Administration, and New York State’s Nourish New York program. We receive funds or food from these organizations. We also distribute donated adult diapers, walkers, wheelchairs, and winter clothes. Each week we serve 300 families on average.
For Daniel Lee, volunteering here was not his first time, and he was glad to help the community. He remembers growing up in New York with his family: “We didn’t have much money. Sometimes, we would go to events like this to get groceries because sometimes, you need help, right? And giving back in the same way feels good. It just comes full circle.”
Others also found a sense of fulfillment in doing this.
This is my second time here. I really love the atmosphere, and I’ll be happy to recommend it to my co-workers as well!
We’re very happy to be able to help and support people in our community. We feel very fulfilled, and it just helps brighten our day that we’re making a difference in someone’s life.
April is actually a big volunteering month at Starbucks, as it is when the coffee company celebrates its Global Month of Good – initially called the Starbucks Global Month of Service. The initiative launched in 2010, the company’s 40th anniversary, when Rodney Hines, then the Director of Community Investments for Starbucks U.S. Retail Operations, proposed incorporating volunteer service into the celebration. “What truly embodies the spirit of our company is courage and passion,” he explained, “to improve the lot of others and to not be a bystander. We thought, what better way to recognize four decades of Starbucks in locations around the world than a global service project.”
As a day or week would not suffice for hundreds of thousands of partners (employees) to participate, Starbucks now designates a full month for the project annually. Thus, each April, Starbucks partners worldwide engage in community service and invite their colleagues, customers, and community members to volunteer with them. It is in this spirit that Victoria Liou-Gonzalez introduced Tzu Chi’s food pantries to Starbucks in 2021. In fact, she is no stranger to Tzu Chi.
Victoria grew up in Tzu Chi. Her mother, Mingchu Hwang, has been a Tzu Chi volunteer for over 30 years.
Growing Up in Tzu Chi
Victoria Liou-Gonzalez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where her mother, Mingchu Hwang, first discovered Tzu Chi in 1984 when her daughter was just one year old. Hwang and others were eager to start a chapter there and followed the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation’s bamboo bank spirit by striving to donate regularly. However, not long after, the family moved to the United States in 1986.
Settling in New York City, Hwang reconnected with Tzu Chi by chance. “I believe it was a hair salon that she had gone to, and they were also doing this concept where they would be donating money every month and getting a New York chapter started,” Liou-Gonzalez recalls her mother telling her. These early pioneers’ efforts reached fruition when, in 1991, they established Tzu Chi USA’s Northeast Region with its headquarters office in Flushing, Queens.
By then, Liou-Gonzalez was eight and became the first student at the Tzu Chi Chinese weekend school opened in New York; these weekend schools are now known as Tzu Chi Academies. There, she learned the Chinese language and culture but was also exposed to Tzu Chi’s community service philosophy, reinforced by her mother’s volunteer activities in which the little girl participated.
“I would be involved in street cleanings and then visiting nursing homes, foster homes, and homeless shelters, and helped with donation requests for any natural disaster relief, developing this love and compassion for others, wanting to support people in my community,” Liou-Gonzalez remembers. “So I think that upbringing helped me to develop and grow into a very caring person, putting myself in other people’s shoes, seeing other people’s perspectives, and wanting to help people.”
However, Liou-Gonzalez remarks that it was almost like living two lives, one in Tzu Chi and the other in her regular school, where her peers didn’t engage in community service, something she enjoyed immensely. As a self-described introvert, when she joined the local Tzu Chi Youth Group as a teenager, participating in Tzu Chi activities allowed her to develop leadership skills and greater confidence. “I looked forward to seeing my friends at Tzu Chi. I grew up very shy and reserved and kind of kept to myself. Going into Tzu Chi was an outlet for me to learn to be myself and be comfortable.”
And yet, Liou-Gonzalez drifted away from Tzu Chi and her friends there when she left to study at Binghamton University. “I stopped attending any Tzu Chi events,” she recounts, “My mom would ask me, ‘Oh, why don’t you come to this event?’ And I don’t know, I’d lost touch with those friends and kind of lost interest in that community.”
A Catalyst to Come Home
After graduation and a few years of working at other corporate jobs, Victoria Liou-Gonzalez began working for the Starbucks Coffee Company and was on course to a life independent from Tzu Chi. But then, the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, and her community spirit gradually reawakened amid the global crisis. “It was a very challenging time for everybody. And I personally felt a little lost working from home every day, not being able to see my family, coworkers, and any of my friends often,” she says, looking back. “I felt very isolated.”
As 2021 rolled around, Liou-Gonzalez remembered that the Starbucks Global Month of Good was approaching: “A thought just came to me; I was like, ‘Oh, Tzu Chi is the nonprofit I grew up with, maybe I can make this introduction, start a partnership.’”
I reached out to the lower Manhattan, the Chinatown food pantry, to see if they had any opportunities for us to start volunteering there. And they were very receptive and very open, very excited for us to go volunteer. So that's when it started, April 2021.
As she pondered having taken these steps, Liou-Gonzalez realized, “During the pandemic, everyone was going through a really tough personal time. And I think giving back to the community was like my own source of therapy and a way to pull myself out of any feelings of anxiety or negativity. And it uplifted me again; like it brought me back to life to be grateful and that I have both the compassion and passion to help others.”
After introducing the food pantry at Tzu Chi USA Northeast Region’s Manhattan Service Center in Chinatown to Starbucks and her colleagues in 2021, she connected them with the pantry at the Region’s headquarters in Flushing, Queens, in December 2023. Since then, Starbucks partners have come to volunteer at both locations several times a year, with more coming in April, as it’s the organization’s Global Month of Good. Each food pantry event is an eye-opening experience where they recognize that people need help even in their own communities and are motivated to continue volunteering.
It feels so good. And then you get to take that good spirit back to your team and enlighten them to join you the next time you come out.
This Connection Is Bringing More Than Volunteers
Starbucks partners coming to volunteer at Tzu Chi USA Northeast Region’s food pantries in New York City is not the only marvelous aspect of the connection between Tzu Chi and Starbucks that Victoria Liou-Gonzalez forged, as grants from the coffee company are another.
Starbucks Foundation, the philanthropic side of the Starbucks Coffee Company, runs a Neighborhood Grants program. Starbucks partners and alums can nominate local grassroots, community-led nonprofit organizations to receive grants through it. “It ties in with April Global Month of Good because as we volunteer at nonprofits, we also get to nominate them,” Liou-Gonzalez explains. “We get to write about our experience working with this nonprofit and why they’re deserving. The more nominations a nonprofit receives, the higher the amount, usually from 1,000 to 10,000.”
Ever since April 2021, we have been nominating Tzu Chi every time. There have been six rounds of this neighborhood grant, and they received $40,000 in total from these rounds. The last round was from June 2024, and they're receiving $10,000 this year. 131 people nominated Tzu Chi. I was in shock because usually, we have maybe 60 or 80. If we can stay in contact with other regions like New Jersey or reach out to other chapters, volunteering opportunities can keep expanding; this could get bigger and bigger.
Reflections and Gratitude
As Victoria Liou-Gonzalez looks back on her initiative in introducing Tzu Chi to the Starbucks Coffee Company, she deservedly feels a sense of pride, yet one imbued with gratitude and goodwill. “As I reflect and think, if I hadn’t taken the initiative to make the introduction, no partners would have known about Tzu Chi and these volunteering events. Tzu Chi would not have received all these grants in the last four years. I am glad I made the decision as it has been wonderful to create a positive impact for my nonprofit and my company,” she says while acknowledging the group effort in the same breath: “These partners, because of their volunteering and their efforts along with Tzu Chi’s partnership, we made this happen together, so it’s the best feeling in the world.”
“I’ve known Tzu Chi since I was eight years old. I’m 41 years old now,” Liou-Gonzalez says as she considers her life journey and how this initiative has brought her home to an organization she loves and its core values of giving back and caring for others. “When I help and give back, it also makes me feel good about myself; the feeling is mutual,” she reflects. “And if I can be a good person, it just makes the world a better place. I’m spreading my love because I want people to see the difference they can make and the impact.”
As for her partners at Starbucks, who have discovered volunteering in Tzu Chi’s activities thanks to her efforts, they couldn’t agree more.
I would do this every time. Yeah, this is amazing.
