By Jason Cruz
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Electric vehicle-sharing company Lime is celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month with a partnership with Kin On. The company will be raising awareness and donating proceeds in furtherance of Kin On’s mission to support local elders and families.
It is the first time that the company has partnered with an organization for AAPI month. The campaign includes the Kin On name on 150 Lime vehicles with AAPI designs. The vehicles will be in the corridors of Columbia City, the Chinatown-International District (CID), and downtown. Additionally, Lime intends to make a $5,000 donation to the organization in support of its work.
Lime’s Chief Executive Officer, Wayne Ting, a Taiwanese American, emphasized the importance of becoming involved.
Wayne Ting
“At Lime, we believe in celebrating diversity and in giving back to the communities we serve and this new partnership invites our riders to join us in doing both.” Ting added, “I know personally how important it can be for our riders and our employees to see AAPI heritage celebrated and it’s great to see our Seattle team bring our values to life so creatively by allowing our riders to support Kin On and the important work they do in the community.”
Not only is it celebrating AAPI month with this partnership, Lime also values the contributions of members from the community within the company. Lime has an employee relations group named Calamansi—a citrus fruit used in Filipino cuisine. The group is in charge of curating a host of events internally, which range from bringing in AAPI influential leaders from outside the company to talk to employees to simpler events such as sharing family recipes.
“The reason why we want to be a part of AAPI month is that we really wanted to do something for a not-for-profit organization. We’ve done partnerships with other organizations before so when AAPI came around, we decided to come up with a partnership,” said Victor Long, Senior Operations Manager for Seattle.
“I chose Kin On because growing up as a second generation Chinese American, I heard about Kin On.” Long added, “The thing that stood out about Kin On is the relationship with the Asian American community.” Kin On’s services are tailored to the AAPI community as they offer multilingual programs to help those where English is not their first language.
“When we came up with a list of organizations we were looking to support, Kin On was on top of the list.”
“We reached out to their donations chair, had a quick meeting with them, and let them know about our goals and ambitions,” said Long. “They heard about Lime so when we reached out, they were very receptive to us partnering with them for AAPI month.”
The vehicles are strategically placed based on ridership and are sometimes replaced to other areas after rides. An operations team keeps the vehicles in areas where riders have access to them. The team keeps track of the vehicles in terms of trips per vehicle and location of rides.
“The City of Seattle is aware we are doing the campaign, and we had a call with the department of transportation and are excited with our campaign with Kin On,” Long said.
Lime intends to visit Kin On, located in the CID, to celebrate AAPI month. The company will offer free lessons for those in the Kin On community wanting to take a test drive. Lime rider average age is in the 30s, but they also see older riders, especially on Lime e-bikes.
Lime has partnered with other organizations throughout the year with its next partnership occurring during Pride Month in June.
Jason can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.