It’s a cold winter in Spokane, making it the perfect time for chefs like Michelle Ho to bring warm food to everyone’s bellies. 

Ho is a manager at Feast World Kitchen and the owner of Peeking Duck, a Chinese cuisine pop-up venue. Hailing from Hong Kong, she arrived in Spokane in 2018 and began cooking four years ago. Encouraged by her mother and brother, Ho began volunteering at Feast to learn business skills and make a difference.

“It definitely made me nervous,” Ho said. “But when I first started to volunteer I felt excited about it. I understood that this wasn’t like a regular restaurant.”

Her business is made possible in part by Feast – a nonprofit restaurant downtown that has a daily rotation of over 150 partner chefs every day from around the world.

But it’s not just food that Feast is crazy about. According to their mission statement, Feast’s values enshrine a wide variety of beliefs and convictions such as: hospitality, anti-racism, community responsiveness and empowerment, and honoring people above all else.

Feast does this by providing local immigrants with novel opportunities that extend past culture and cuisine. The nonprofit also hosts “Table Time,” an informal program that seeks to help immigrants adjust to life in the United States and Spokane.

“We help immigrants fill out paperwork, write resumes, and learn English among other things,” said Maisa Abudahya, one of the co-founders of Feast Collective. 

Maisa is an immigrant from Jordan, where she moved to the United States with her two children to work as a programmer in Spokane before marrying her husband and co-founding the nonprofit with her colleagues in 2019.

“When I moved here, food was about more than just culture,” Abudahya said. “It was also about community-building, survival, and a way to build a family. When I see families come in here to make a new life and achieve their dreams, it fills me with so much energy and power.”

And that’s what makes stories like Michelle’s and Maisa’s so touching. Their perseverance through uncharted territory is inspiring – and an example Ho wants other chefs to follow as they make their way in a new country.

“Feast plays an important role in diversity,” Ho said. “They helped me have an opportunity to share my food and my culture, so I want to share what I’ve learned with them as well.”

And it seems like this mission is being fulfilled. According to census data, there are over 700 minority-owned businesses since 2022 – the highest it’s been in the last five years. This trend, while inspiring to many, comes with concern over the new Trump Administration’s aggressive policies on immigration.

“Of course, we’re concerned about the new administration,” Abudahya said. “But we’re still doing everything we can to help our families.”

And Feast intends to uphold this commitment. According to their website, 77 percent of Feast’s staff are people of color, and 79 percent are women. They’ve also helped train over 30 chefs from around the world to encourage them to start their own businesses and find empowerment in a new community.

For questions or comments about this story, contact the author at sami.maria.aurea@gmail.com.