To our Mendo Family,
As a company co-founded by an Asian American, serving and employing many individuals of Asian American and Pacific Islander descent, and drawing endless inspiration from the cuisine of Asian cultures, we must speak out against the recent hate crimes and violence against the AAPI community and voice our support of today’s National Day of Action.
Our restaurants are gathering places where everyone is welcome, accepted, and celebrated. We do not tolerate racism in any form.
We know that change starts from within, and are continuing to take meaningful action internally to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion is at the forefront of everything we do, including:
- Introducing Mendo Cares, a platform for team members to voice questions, issues or concerns in an anonymous manner
- Granting our team members paid Community Time to participate in activism, volunteerism or to positively affect change in their communities
- Implementing regular Team Member Exchanges to gather team member feedback and discuss Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We also wanted to share these resources in the hopes we can all do our part to acknowledge, listen and learn:
- Stop AAPI Hate for valuable resources and action steps you can take to help
- Self Evident: Asian American’s Stories is a podcast that aims to challenge assumptions about Asian Americans
- PBS’ Asian Americans is a five-part documentary series on the history of Asians in America
- Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC’s tool for reporting hate incidents
We will continue to evaluate other ways we can get involved in being part of the solution, and look forward to sharing more with you soon.
Sincerely,
KEVIN MILES, CEO and THE MENDOCINO FARMS TEAM