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Shangri-La's Yellow Napkin Project aims to increase our community's disability allyship through education and awareness that leads to actions that promote a more accessible and inclusive community. 

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Started in 2022 with just 2,500 napkins, the Yellow Napkin Project now distributes 25,000 napkins featuring five disability literacy messages In 2025, the project will happen during Disability Pride Month in July.

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These messages were crafted using input from: 

  • individuals with disabilities served by Shangri-La

  • employees with disabilities working at Shangri-La

  • disability community allies, including Direct Support Professionals and family members of individuals with disabilities

Messages also echo the knowledge Shangri-La has learned from individuals with disabilities over the past 60 years of supporting this community.

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​The napkins (provided at no-cost) are distributed by community partners, mainly food service establishments, who share the napkins with their customers. 

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View the 2025 Napkin Messages

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Want to be a Yellow Napkin Project distribution partner in 2025?

We accept food service establishments in Marion, Polk, Lane, Linn, and Benton Counties. View the 2025 partnership guide or click the button below to register.

This project is made possible through support from our friends at:

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Project Acknowledgements

This is bigger than what fits on a napkin.

We understand these disability topics are big, complex, and super diverse and personal based on who you ask -- certainly bigger than can be covered on the size of a dinner napkin. Our hope is that the topics on the napkins are a catalyst for having those big, complex, diverse, and personal conversations -- hopefully over something delicious to eat or drink. 

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We are still learning.

We have done our best to echo what we have learned from the disability community, but we also know that disability literacy, advocacy, and allyship is an on-going process of learning and action. We are still learning.
 

For example, Tiffany Yu, in her book The Anti-Ableist Manifesto, recently taught us (after the napkins were already at the printer), that non-apparent disability is a better term than invisible disability, and that the common dictionary definition of disability can be harmful to those in the disability community.

 

She suggest this definition instead, which offers no negative value judgement. We hope to echo this definition in the future: "Disability is a health condition of the body and/or mind that impacts the way a person participates in daily activities."

2025 Yellow Napkin Project Distribution Partners

Support these local businesses who are helping create communities where all people are accepted for their abilities. 

  • On Any Sundae, Salem

  • Beehive Station Taphouse, Salem

  • Subs with Love, Keizer

  • Urban Grange, Salem

  • Don Froylan Creamery, Salem

  • Manna Japanese Comfort Food, Salem

  • NY Squares, Independence

  • Stomp by Croft Vineyards, Salem

  • ​Dry Town Tap Station, Monmouth

  • The Barn at Hickory Station, Albany

  • Gracie's Sweets and Treats, Salem

  • Ankeny Vineyard, Salem 

  • Umpqua Bank, Salem-area locations

  • The Easy Otter, Salem

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  • Prismatic Coffee Company, Salem

  • Cozzie's NY Deli, Salem

  • Lively Station, Salem

  • Sewell Sweets, Salem

  • Willamette Valley Pie Company, Salem

  • Miller's BBQ, Salem

  • Chic Skape, Mt Angel

  • Black Sheep Cafe, Salem

  • Heroes Tap House, Salem

  • The Sippery, Monmouth

  • New Morning Bakery, Dallas

  • The Yard, Salem

  • Night Deposit Whiskey Library, Salem

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