Sabores de mi Tierra Dinner featuring Oaxacan foodways with Rufi's Cacao and Baddies y Banda. Photo: Samantha Perez
Oakland Bloom is a nonprofit that supports working-class immigrant and diasporic chef-entrepreneurs and neighborhoods by fostering a more connected, generative and direct local economy. Through its project Open Test Kitchen, Oakland Bloom hosts a community kitchen hub co-led with chefs, which offers opportunities for collaboration, and a community space that hosts events for cultural joy. Oakland Bloom also hosts events that foster community healing, resilience, joy, and learning—at Open Test Kitchen, at neighborhood-based initiatives in Oakland Chinatown, and via partnerships connecting chefs to share their stories and craft across Oakland and the Bay Area.
Overview of the Lantern Festival 2024, Green Eyed Media.
Workshop Series: Food Cultures across Our Diasporas
Funding will support four public workshops on foodways, led by local chefs, that align with key cultural moments: from Día de los Muertos, to Eritrean Christmas, Eid, and the Dragonboat Festival.
Oakland Bloom's Chef Marlene from TSIRI poses with the community ofrenda as part of our annual Día de los Muertos community event, 2025. Photo: Sydney Dean.
Image from the 2024 Lantern Festival, co-hosted by Oakland Bloom. Photo: Joyce Xi.
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