This story begins with a few dedicated Cantonese-speaking volunteers at the Riverdale Hospital, a long-term care and rehabilitation facility in downtown Toronto. The volunteers were doing something that seemed quite simple: feeding the patients they worked with. They felt, quite reasonably, that in many ways they understood the needs of these patients better than the caregiving staff. After all, they spoke the same language and shared similar cultural backgrounds. Some of these volunteers had been tending to these patients for over a decade, participating in Riverdale Hospital's Chinese Programming: attending Cantonese videos, mahjong games and monthly Chinese luncheons.

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