ABOUT US

ESTABLISHED IN 2018, Taste of home seeks to promote cultural exchange in Charlottesville through organizing pop-up dinners that showcase food prepared by local Immigrant or refugee chefs. Charlottesville is home to almost 4000 refugees from 32 countries and has a popular foodie culture. We believe this combination can be harnessed to promote tolerance and celebrate diversity in our city.

For the Immigrant and refugee community in Charlottesville, our organization wants to provide a way to preserve their cultures through keeping their recipes alive. The nostalgia in food is an important way to remember where one comes from, and is a way to share a very "human" and personal part of one's culture. The organization will also compensate the refugee-chefs for each pop up they cook for and this additional source of income can be very important to some families. It will also help them build new friendships with the wider Charlottesville community and build work experience in the U.S. If food is the common denominator that all cultures share, it has the potential to cure the "us and them" mentality.