The contemporary Vietnamese restaurant located at the Wharf, Moon Rabbit, is hosting a seven-course dinner featuring local AAPI chefs this Sunday — and a majority of funds will go to the victims of the shooting in Monterey Park, California.

News of the mass shooting, where a gunman killed ten people inside a dance studio frequented by many older Chinese immigrants during the weekend of Lunar New Year, left countless people across the country devastated, particularly members of the Asian American Pacific Islander community, including Moon Rabbit chef Kevin Tien.

“It’s like really upsetting to know this happened on a day… like the biggest day in the Asian community. We’re all together,” Tien tells DCist/WAMU. “I’m Vietnamese. We spend like two weeks ramping up to the big day. To spend two weeks ramping up to the big day, you really feel like you got the wind knocked out of you with such a terrible incident.”

Monterey Park is dear to many within the AAPI community from Los Angeles and surrounding area, and dubbed America’s first Asian ethnoburb for refusing to assimilate. Tien grew up in Southern California, with family still in Orange County, and remembers the Lunar New Year festivals hosted in Monterey Park. He recalls visiting neighboring El Monte all the time for food.

After hearing about the shooting, Tien decided a majority of proceeds from an already planned dinner for Lunar New Year would go to victims, instead of strictly toward efforts at preserving D.C.’s Chinatown. (Chinatown was one of two places that Tien wanted to visit before moving here, and was struck by the new development that appeared to have left “a Chinatown in name only“.) Still, part of the funds raised on Jan. 29 will also go to the Washington Chinese Youth Club, which provides youth mentorship through sports and volunteer opportunities, and 1882 Foundation, which seeks to bring awareness to the history and continued significance of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The dinner this Sunday evening will feature dishes from notable local chefs including: Tim Ma of Lucky Danger, Erik Bruner-Yang of Maketto, Yuan Tang of Rooster & Owl, Paolo Dungca of Hiraya, Masako Morishita of Perry’s, and Susan Bae of Moon Rabbit, as well as Tien himself. Tien says there will be an eighth chef named soon. Tien also says each chef has been asked to make a dish that’s special to them, given that it’s a Lunar New Year celebration. (Notably, it’s year of the Rabbit.)

Diners should expect a variety of dishes and flavors, with chefs coming from various backgrounds, namely Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese. A silent auction will also be held, with all the proceeds going to Monterey Park victims. Each chef will donate something (like their time and expertise). For example, Tien is offering the winner a chance to hang out with him and Jade Womack of clockoutdc as they frequent their favorite Asian restaurants in the D.C. area. The winner can ask them anything they’d like to know about the media or restaurant industries.

“Even though, a lot of people can easily say ‘It’s the Chinese New Year,’ we want it to be Lunar New Year because it’s more than just the Chinese culture that celebrates this time of year,” says Tien. “We thought it’d be very special for everyone to be able to celebrate something that’s a recipe or a dish that’s very important to them, so we can continue to tell the story of everybody throughout the whole dinner.”

Tickets go for $200 each, according to the event page.

The event is part of Chefs Stopping AAPI Hate, a local initiative that Tien, Ma, and Bruner-Yang started during the pandemic because of the influx of racism and violence against the Asian community. Tien says the next thing you should expect from them is a night market festival for the month of May, which is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month.