Meet James Huang | Co-founder of NiHao Food Bank Initiative

We had the good fortune of connecting with James Huang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi James, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?

The NiHao Food Bank Initiative is a volunteer-driven grassroots movement of the Chinese American diaspora, focused on raising awareness about hunger in the USA, improving community engagement, as well as directing resources and contributions toward the North Texas Food Bank to fight hunger. In FY2022, NiHao raised over $150k, completed over 2000 hours of community services, and donated over 8000 pounds of food for the North Texas Food Bank, enabling over 600000 meals for our neighbors in need.

The NiHao Food Bank Initiative was founded on the basis of making an impact on the community we live in. Our eastern culture have always stressed the importance of family and helping our community. It is no surprise that we were able to gain traction within the very first few months of our introduction. We saw the results from our recent peanut butter drive surpassing our last year’s drive by over 60%.

As we continue in this crusade to eliminate hunger, we brought on our younger generation by creating the Ambassadors program, enabling them to be more socially responsible and to play an integral role in our community. This will also allow us to extend the movement to many more generations of the Chinese American diaspora to come.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
I am the managing partner of EA Insurance and Financial Services, a niche insurance brokerage firm, servicing predominantly Chinese-speaking clients. Through my many years of helping clients with their financial planning and protection planning needs, I’ve come to realized how important our families are in our eastern culture. Building a legacy and seeing ourselves as role models for our future generation is a frequent topic that comes up in our discussions.

During the pandemic, many of us saw first hand how a sudden catastrophe can turn our worlds upside down. Mile-long lines of cars waiting at food banks just to pick up boxes of food to last them until their next pick up. A light bulb lit up! What better way to build a legacy for our future generation than doing good in our community when it needed us the most. My co-founders and I reached out to the North Texas Food Bank and that’s how the NiHao Food Bank Initiative was born. We call the movement NiHao because it means hello, and it is one of the most widely used phrases in the Chinese language. NiHao literally translates into “you well”, and can sometime replace a popular greeting “have you eaten” in certain parts of China. It is our goal that the expression NiHao can one day be an expression to represent the goodness of our heart

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Being a Chinese, my favorite spots are always going to center around food. There are several good “China towns” in the DFW area. The original Chinatown in Richardson (Greenville and Beltline), the 99 Ranch supermarket anchored plazas in Plano (Springcreek and N. Central Expwy), Frisco (near Warren and Preston Rd.) and Carrollton （Old Denton Rd and George Bush Trpk).

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The NiHao Food Bank initiative was found by Bing Xie (a seasoned global executive), Jane Li (a global executive with a passion for running) and I. We first learned about the community-based model from HungerMitao, a similar grassroot movement of the Indian American diaspora, through the North Texas Food Bank. Due to our similar Asian roots, Raj and Anna Asava of HungerMitao shared invaluable insights and strategies to assist us to engage our community.

We’d also like to recognize the US China Chamber of Commerce, Dallas (USCCC) for helping to kick-off the movement. We also like to thank other local Chinese organizations including ACP Foundation, Greater Dallas Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce (GDTCC), Dallas Chinese IT Association (DCIA), US-China Restaurant Alliance, DFW Asian American Citizens Council, Asian American Real Estate Association, Dallas Chapter for supporting our movement.

Website: www.ntfb.org/nihao

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nihao-food-bank-initiative/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084734799182

Youtube: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084734799182