Creative non-profit organisation Welcome to Chinatown has launched its first NFT collection on Solana’s Metaplex as part of an initiative to create a relief fund for struggling Chinese businesses in Manhattan.
The inaugural collection – Tray of Togetherness – is the result of a collaborative effort between six AAPI artists, and will be sold over the course of the Chinese Lunar New Year with all proceeds going towards the new fund.
Chinese businesses – especially in Manhattan’s world famous Chinatown – have been hit especially hard by Covid-19; most abhorrently due to the rise in xenophobic attacks against the community in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’ rhetoric.
👀🧧🐅 HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR
SOMETHING SPECIAL IS COMING SOON. @WtChinatown × @W_W_F × @colledecor pic.twitter.com/4V6qH4sbtx— WENDY W FOK | 霍渭瑜 (@W_W_F) February 1, 2022
The establishment of a so-called ‘Longevity Fund’ aims to bolster businesses and support them in bouncing back from the pandemic through a grant program and an additional growth accelerator for at-risk small businesses.
Welcome to Chinatown drive grassroot NFT adoption
Stephen Hess – the Director of the Solana-based Metaplex Foundation – has publicly backed the initiative highlighting it as a key marker of mainstream NFT adoption.
“We’re thrilled to support Welcome to Chinatown as they introduce their community to Web3 and NFTs,” said Hess.
“NFTs are for everyone and projects like theirs are an inspiring way to educate communities by bridging the gap between the physical and digital, offering an exciting peek into what’s to come.”
As an organisation Welcome to Chinatown has pioneered the bridging of a multi-faceted cultural, generational, and technological gap in Manhattan’s Chinese community. Following the last Lunar New Year $2m was successfully raised and advocacy efforts for the Stop Anti-Asian Hate campaign organised.
Among the artists contributing to the NFT collection are Haruko Hayakawa, Cori Huang, Eden Lew, Gabrielle Widjaja, Emily B Yang, Spaced Agency and Wendy W Fok.
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