When was CHAI founded and what is its mission?
CHAI ACS was founded in 2023 to strengthen Assyrian community through elder support, cultural preservation, resource navigation, and nonprofit capacity-building.
At its heart, CHAI ACS was created to help rebuild from the ground up. Our work supports grassroots organizations, elders, families, and community leaders by helping them access stronger systems, better resources, and long-term planning tools. We also work to preserve the stories, language, faith, memory, and identity that have carried our people through generations.
A phrase that has become part of our identity is simple but meaningful: where serving communities is our cup of tea.
I started CHAI ACS because I kept seeing the same need appear across our communities. After serving dozens of nonprofits, I saw a pattern. We are rich in faith, culture, generosity, and resilience, but many grassroots organizations and families need stronger support behind them. They need help with grants, compliance, resource navigation, storytelling, outreach, governance, and sustainable planning.
This mission is also deeply personal for me. As the eldest daughter and caregiver for my parents during their times of need, I saw firsthand the gaps, blind spots, and barriers that families often face when trying to navigate healthcare, aging services, and government systems.
Even when resources exist, families can still fall through the cracks because they do not know where to begin, who to call, what they qualify for, or how to advocate for themselves. That lived experience helps shape CHAI ACS into an organization that understands both the emotional weight and the practical complexity of caring for loved ones.
CHAI ACS was built to meet that need with both heart and structure. We are not here to replace community institutions. We are here to strengthen them.
What is the scope of your mission?
Our mission is both practical and deeply cultural.
On one hand, we help organizations become more competitive, compliant, and sustainable. On the other hand, we work to protect what cannot be replaced: our elders' stories, our language, our traditions, and our shared memory for preservation.
We also understand that many families are quietly overwhelmed by systems that were not designed with cultural or language accessibility in mind.
CHAI ACS works to bridge those gaps by helping families and organizations better understand available resources, prepare documentation, connect with service providers, and move through complex systems with greater confidence and dignity.
We believe lasting progress requires both. A community cannot rise if its systems are weak, and it cannot endure if its heritage is forgotten.
Can you give us some examples of your work?
One example of our work is the CHAI ACS Virtual Resource Navigator, which helps families access essential senior services and community resources across multiple regions. Through this platform, families can find information related to housing and aging in place, benefits, food and nutrition, transportation, caregiver support, community wellness, medical directives, and funeral arrangements.
In 2025, CHAI ACS expanded its reach across Arizona, California, Illinois, Michigan, and the Nineveh Plain in Iraq, reflecting our commitment to communities both in the diaspora and in the homeland.
Another major area of our work is grant management and capacity-building. CHAI ACS supports grassroots and community organizations with technical assistance, compliance monitoring, reporting guidance, documentation, funding strategy, and institutional development.
In 2025, CHAI ACS submitted more than $2 million in funding requests, supported 19 organizations and community members, helped circulate millions of dollars in open grant opportunities, and helped partners secure more than $604,000 in awarded funding across FY2024 and FY2025.
Right now, we are strengthening our internal infrastructure and systems to manage the federal funding we helped secure while finalizing our five year strategic plan. Our goal is to finalize the foundation so we can serve the most vulnerable communities transparently and compliantly.
How do you manage community outreach?
We created the Weekly Cup of CHAI newsletter to advocate for and amplify grassroots voices. It allows us to share community updates, grant opportunities, program highlights, resources, and stories that might otherwise remain unseen through email and social media channels.
For many smaller organizations and community members, visibility is part of survival. The newsletter gives us a consistent way to connect people to information, elevate important work, and remind our community that their efforts matter.
Over time, that same desire to amplify community voices led us more intentionally toward Voices From Our Elders. This initiative was created to capture and preserve the lived experiences of our elders, especially stories of migration, faith, family, survival, entrepreneurship, displacement, language, and community leadership.
Our elders are not just participants in history. They are keepers of memory. Their stories carry our culture, and if we do not preserve them now, we risk losing pieces of ourselves. Through oral histories, written narratives, translated excerpts, digital archives, and family e-books, Voices From Our Elders is designed to honor our elders while giving future generations a record of where they come from.
How does CHAI implement its mission?
Our team brings together experienced leaders across several disciplines who are committed to responsible stewardship, institutional strength, and community advancement.
CHAI ACS operates with disciplined governance, fiscal transparency, and board oversight. We are also committed to dignity, respect, and inclusion in the way we serve. Our work is rooted in the belief that every person, family, and organization deserves fair access, thoughtful support, and accountable leadership.
There are many exciting partnerships and developments taking shape, and I am blessed to work with an amazing team that believes deeply in this mission.
Where do you see CHAI in the future?
Looking ahead, CHAI ACS is focused on building sustainable infrastructure for the future.
Our 2026--2031 vision includes strengthening community safety, expanding elder and family resource navigation, preserving cultural heritage, supporting youth and economic development, building regional capacity, and helping grassroots organizations grow with stronger systems.
We are building toward a future where Assyrian community are not only remembered for what they survived, but recognized for what they built.
What does CHAI mean to you?
For me, CHAI ACS is more than an organization. It is a promise.
We are rebuilding from the root so our communities can rise with resilience, confidence, and dignity for generations to come.
A promise that our elders will not be forgotten. A promise that families caring for loved ones will not feel abandoned by systems they do not understand. A promise that our grassroots leaders will not have to build alone. A promise that our culture, language, stories, and institutions deserve protection, investment, and continuity.
One family, one partner, one story, one program, and one cup of CHAI at a time.
1 Note: chai (ܟ̰ܐܝ) is the Assyrian word for tea.
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