Over Thanksgiving break, during the COVID-19 pandemic, junior Harris Xie and his family noticed that the lines for food banks in Dallas were quite long.
“This was a huge thing. We didn’t know people had to stand in the cold for four hours a day just to get food,” Xie said.
After seeing this, Xie’s father and other Asian American members of the community reached out to the North Texas Food Bank asking to help. As the issue became more apparent in the community, support grew.
Then, the Nihao North Texas Food Bank Initiative was founded, and they officially became a part of the North Texas Food Bank.
Many Greenhill students and families are involved with the Nihao Foodbank. Xie is the President of the Youth Ambassadors Program, junior Andrew Cai is the Vice President of Membership and Social Media Manager and junior Sherry Zhang is the Vice President of Photo and Video Production.
Cai joined during the pandemic when it was much smaller and has volunteered increasingly throughout the years.
The organization has significantly ballooned in size since Cai started.
“Even though it’s grown, you don’t feel distanced from anybody. It still feels like a small cohort of people working to achieve a common goal. It’s kind of like a second family,” Cai said.
Xie agrees, showing his appreciation for every member.
“Each individual member is valued and brings in their unique ideas,” Xie said.
The Nihao Foodbank is behind many events in the greater Dallas area. According to Xie, they have some that are at Greenhill, but many are at DISD schools or public community centers like local Addison libraries.
One event they held was a teen safety seminar with the Dallas Police Department where police officers taught local teens about safe driving.
Additionally, they are involved in fundraisers. One fundraiser that Xie highlighted was the DFW Dragon Boat Kite and Lantern Festival, which is run by the Marco Polo Foundation.
The main attraction of the festival was a dragon boat race, which was made up of different groups like Boy Scouts, corporations, schools and other non-profit community groups.
In addition to the racing aspect, various groups set up booths to spread and promote their ideas. The Nihao Initiative had a booth where they promoted their events and spread awareness about food insecurity.
Xie says he is grateful for how much the organization has been able to publish.
“I‘m still shocked at what we’ve been able to accomplish because initially, it was just a small group of people,” Xie said.
According to Xie, the organization has raised about $400,000 for those who are hungry in North Texas, which paid for about 1.3 million meals.
“We didn’t know what kind of impact we would make; we just knew that we wanted to make a difference in our community,” Xie said. “In two and a half years, we’ve gotten over 600 total members and partnered with major corporations.”
