‘Open Borders, Open Hearts’ fundraising dinner and raffle to bring cocktails, community, and grub

For Sasha Schoen—who with partner and chef Brennan Villarreal have the Got Your Back residency at Selva—being a Minnesota native has been tough across 2026 as ICE agents and right-wingers stoke chaos and fear-mongering: The murder of Alex Pretti. The attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar. Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos detained by ICE…

“The whole thing—especially being from Minnesota—has been nothing but heartbreaking and difficult to deal with,” Sasha said. “And that’s where this idea truly stems from.”

The idea? A raffle-meets-fundraiser dinner rightfully dubbed “Open Borders, Open Hearts.” Proceeds? Benefiting Órale, the Long Beach-based immigrant rights organization. Collaborating? Of course: Chuntikis—the cocktail pop-up from history-obsessed, immigrant-loving, all-around-beautiful human Julio Gutierrez—will be taking over the bar.

“We wanted to work with Jules or a really long time, but since we’re always wine-focused, we never really had the opportunity,” Sasha said. “Because our world is on fire and ICE agents are fucking up our lives, it seems like a really good time to collaborate and kind of join forces, especially since Jules’s whole concept surrounding Chuntikis is about the flavors, histories, and cultures behind immigrants themselves.”

With ‘Open Borders, Open Hearts,’ there are multiple ways to participate…

Community-building has always been the focus of Got Your Back’s operations, whether at one of their backyard pop-ups or at their residency at Selva. Therefore, little is different for “Open Borders, Open Hearts”—except the focus on raising money for Órale. And there are two ways to do that: through the online participation of the raffle and through attending their residency at Selva on Monday, Feb. 9 ffrom 5PM to 10PM.

You can Venmo co-organizers Allison Dill and Jasmine Becker $10 with “beer” in the caption and automatically be entered. Or you can show up at Selva for Got Your Back’s residency on Feb. 9 and buy tickets. Raffle prizes announced at around 9PM on Feb. 9.

“The food industry, the restaurant industry, our industry wouldn’t exist without immigrants,” Sasha said, noting as to why Oralé’s work is so important in the contemporary context. “Chef Brennan wouldn’t exist without any immigrants; his family is from the Philippines. I wouldn’t exist without immigrants if my family had not come here… We are all only here because of them.”

What’s being raffled?

Here are your options. And, again, there are two ways to participate. Digitally: Venmo $10 with the caption “beer” to automatically be entered. Or show up at Got Your Back’s residency on Monday, Feb. 9, beginning at 5PM.

‘Open Borders, Open Hearts’ will take place at Got Your Back’s residency at Selva, located at 4137 E. Anaheim St., on Monday, Feb. 9, from 5PM to 10PM. Raffle winners to be announced around 9PM.