Civic dinner event highlights immigrants and refugees in Detroit’s Filipinx community

Michigan State University Extension’s Wayne County office and Baon, a monthly subscription food service that serves curated Filipino food, are coming together Friday for a civic dinner.

Kare Kare & Conversation gathers people around Filipino vegan stew and the stories of refugees and immigrants from the Filipinx community.

Stathis Pauls is the site manager and programs coordinator for MSU’s Detroit Partnership for Food, Learning and Innovation in Wayne County. He says the civic dinner is a continuation of ones that were originally created right before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The idea was to have small dinners that would engage and motivate and mobilize the voter base,” says Pauls. “So we kind of took that idea and said, ‘Well, why don’t we put a local food spin on it and try to get a larger audience in front of these conversations?'”

Danielle Daguio, development and engagement coordinator for Keep Growing Detroit and co-founder of Baon, a monthly subscription service of curated Filipino food, says people can find commonalities and connect around culture and community.

“If this is food that can be able to get you to start talking about ways in which we are different and the ways in which we are the same — the ways in which we can work towards being connected to one another — that’s all the more reason why we should have more events like these civic dinners,” Daguio says.

 

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Daguio says Baon, which means “provisions for the journey,” will cook food for the event and send people home with the ingredients to recreate the meal.

Pauls says he hopes to organize more dinners around important conversations.