🌸 April Recap

In April, we served 352 cups of free tea!

Today's recap includes:

🇯🇵 Japanese news program segment

🆓 The Free Market recap

💰 Grant update (spoiler: sad)

But first, some upcoming events in May:

🫖 Tea Talk (link)
This month's Tea Talk is on the topic of Climate Anxiety, in collaboration with Climate Café. We'll sit in a circle, drink some tea, and share our perspectives. Limited capacity, RSVP required.
🗓️ May 8 // 7-9pm // Bushwick

🛀 Tea Bath (link)
A community-healing event featuring a sound bath and mutual aid vendors. We'll be serving free tea all afternoon! RSVP encouraged.
🗓️ May 18 // 2-5pm // Ridgewood

All upcoming events can be found on the Calendar.

🇯🇵 The Tea Stand was featured on a Japanese news program!

The Tea Stand goes global! Following the NY1 profile published back in February, a reporter from the Japanese news program reached out to feature The Tea Stand. They have a recurring segment about strange subcultures in NYC – a perfect fit!

The filming process was thorough – they shot at a Popup, a Distro, my apartment (while I bagged tea), and capped it off with a video interview. All together, around 10 hours behind the camera. Tiring, and at times disruptive, but overall an enjoyable experience. And I'm so happy with how the segment turned out, despite the fact – maybe because the fact – that it's mostly in Japanese (pro tip: turn on auto-translation subtitles!).

Moving forward, I plan to be more selective about media opportunities. We've got a nice-looking portfolio at this point, and The Tea Stand prefers camera-free interactions :)

🆓 The Free Market was a success!

Adam Smith got it all mixed up. Luckily, we realized his mistake, and set things straight with an event called "The Free Market": a vendor market where everything is free. The intention behind The Free Market was to invert capitalism, celebrate community over commodity, and spread joy in many different forms.

On a beautiful Sunday, 10 vendors – a mix of mutual aids, nonprofits, and individuals – came together in Maria Hernandez Park to serve the community with free goods. Free books, free clothes, free baked goods, free personalized poems, free Polaroid portraits, free tea, and more! (Full vendor list here.)

The event was a major success: we served over 500 people (non-unique)! Most visitors stumbled upon The Free Market during their stroll through the park, much to their confusion. It's all free? Really!?

It's so fun to watch people's reactions to something being free (with no catch). They become relaxed, light, and curious. It disrupts the common choreography of financial transactions, which can feel like a delicate dance: if I ask for the price, do I have to buy it? Of course, the answer is no, but it's nice to skip past all the awkwardness that money introduces.

And often, when people realize things are free, they want to support the cause. It's a reminder that reciprocity is a natural tendency of ours, especially without legal tender.

Many, including myself, have asked: when's The Free Market happening next? We're not sure yet! At minimum, it will be an annual event. If you're interested in getting involved as a vendor or organizer, reply to this email!

💰 A sad update on our grant application :(

In February, a friend notified me of a grant opportunity from Hinge called One More Hour. The grant offers funding for organizations which create spaces for in-person interaction, specifically for Gen Z. I applied on a whim and unexpectedly made it to the final round!

Making it to the final round caused a significant shift. What had initially felt like a shot-in-the-dark now felt like an unmissable opportunity. The grant offered $25k in funding, which would nearly cover my cost-of-living for a year (I work on The Tea Stand full-time and have no other source of income!).

With less than 24 hours to start and finish the application (poor timing with my vacation), I poured everything into it. I locked myself in a café all day, trying not to think about my flight to Turkey later that same evening. Friends wrote testimonials, proof-read, and offered much-needed advice on the submission. After a nonstop day of writing and revising, I clicked submit, closed my laptop, and immediately hopped on the subway toward Newark Airport.

The suspense built as the decision date grew closer. I was trying to manifest receiving the grant, gently redirecting my vision of rejection to one of success. I imagined myself jumping up and down, hugging everyone around me, consumed by bliss. The Tea Stand is really gonna work!

Alas, after returning from a lovely Popup in Seward Park on April 18th, I opened up the email and felt my heart plummet. No tears, those came later, but a powerful surge of sadness. A life-changing opportunity, and I missed it.

Two weeks later, I'm grateful to feel undeterred in the face of this rejection. I'm reminding myself that I'm in the same position I was before this opportunity was shared with me. I'm celebrating all the organizations that were selected (as a concept; the list hasn't been shared yet, though I do know Climate Café received the grant!).

And I'm ready for that next chance! If you come across any grant opportunities which The Tea Stand could be a good fit for, please send them my way!

In the name of transparency, you can read through the entire grant application here. Feel free to share any feedback if you're so inclined!

Thank you for reading! Some final notes:

We're launching a Membership program in July! We're working on a zine, a quarterly tea kit, stickers, and other perks to offer supporters. More info soon!

Thanks to all those who donated tea in April: Cubby, Soph, Susan, Nicole, Sophie, and Naqiya. Get in touch if you have tea to donate!

Keep Steeping,
Miles 🍵