After President Joe Biden‘s graceful exit yesterday morning from the race for re-election as the Democratic Presidential nominee, he quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his pick for the top of the ticket.
Yesterday evening, over 44,000 Black women and allies joined a Zoom hosted by winwithblackwomen.org founder and organizer Jotaka Eaddy and raised over $1.5 million for Harris’ newly-minted campaign to secure the nomination.
It took several tries for the majority of participants from all over the U.S. and overseas to join as the Zoom webinar was initially capped at 1,000. Eaddy and other #wwbw organizers made a point to thank Zoom COO Aparna Bawa for stepping in to increase the participant capacity from 1K to over 40K in real time as the overwhelming desire to join this word-of-mouth call to action quickly spread.
Speakers scheduled to appear were Rep. Joyce Beatty (OH), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (TX) and political strategist Donna Brazile. Others who spoke included former Spelman College President Dr. Johnnetta Cole, journalist and commentator Star Jones, author and influencer Luvvie Ajayi along with reps for HBCUS & the Divine Nine Black sororities and fraternities.
Appreciation for the accomplishments of President Biden during his term (e.g. the $35 price limit on insulin; Ketanji Jackson‘s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, protection and expansion of the Affordable Care Act) was voiced, along with forward-looking strategies for coalitions (Ana Navarro offered energetic support as a Latina ally), fundraising, and turning out the vote.
Within 3 hours #winwithblackwomen raised over $1.5M for the Presidential candidacy of @kamalaharris via a special link shared in the chat that tracked donations generated via this grassroots community.
New York author and creator of the #BlackPantherChallenge, Frederick Joseph, launches the #SantaClausChallenge after learning the Operation Cover Chicago 2019 toy drive was short 9,000 toys. With only four days until the toy drive, Joseph called on others to join the challenge by donating or buying a gift for kids in Chicago.
Another Chance Church, launched Operation Cover Chicago 2019 with the aim to make it a Christmas to remember for 10,000 families who otherwise couldn’t afford to buy toys. Statistics show that the Chicagoland community is comprised of 9% of students who are homeless and 45% of adults who are unemployed or under-employed.
Frederick Joseph kicked off the #SantaClausChallenge with a $500 donation to their GoFundMe, which aims to raise $35,000 to purchase toys for children ages three to 15. Inspired by his generosity, GoFundMe made a donation of $5,000. “All children deserve to feel like they matter, especially during the Holidays,” said Frederick Joseph. “This is an opportunity to show them that the community cares and is standing behind all families. I’m calling on others to take action and donate to help more kids experience the joy of Christmas.”
As of December 17th, the challenge met its goal by raising $35,000 to service 10,000 families.
Joseph successfully created the #BlackPantherChallenge, an international movement that raised over $950,000 to send over 73,000 children to see the Black Panther film for free in 2018. He’s been rallying behind community based GoFundMes ever since, having raised over $1.25 million to date for good causes.
Operation Cover Chicago 2019 will be giving away the toys to 10,000 families on December 20, 2019 at 9550 S. Harvard Chicago IL, 60628 at 7pm. To make a donation, visit:
Find Black Santa App created by Jihan Woods (photo via findblacksanta.com)
According to wthr.com, after having trouble finding a Santa Claus her sons could relate to, Dallas psychiatrist Jihan Woods decided to make sure others wouldn’t encounter the same problem.
In 2018, she created a Kickstarter campaign raising some $5,000 in 30 days. The result was a very special app called “Find Black Santa.”
“After several years of trying to find a Santa that was relatable – that my children could identify with, I realized that kind of all over the U.S., but specifically in Dallas, I wasn’t able to find a Santa that represented our family,” Woods explained.
The app lists Santas in 35 states and Washington, D.C. – from Oregon, to one in the Mall of America, and as far south as Florida. She’s even located them in London, Canada, and Amsterdam.
Since creating the app, organizations have reached out to Woods to tell her about their black Santas. And black Santas have asked her to list them for events.
On August 22, 2019, according to eurweb.com, individuals and organizations throughout Baltimore, Maryland will demonstrate the pride they have for their city and the amazing people in it.
In honor of Black Philanthropy Month, social impact organization CLLCTIVLY will launch its inaugural Day of Giving (CLLCTIVGIVE) for Black-led social change organizations serving in Greater Baltimore.
This 24-hour fundraising event is part of CLLCTIVLY’s mission to be a resource for the Greater Baltimore community that seeks to find, fund and partner with Black social change organizations.
The one-day campaign seeks to raise $100,000 in direct support for local organizations, and garner 10,000 donors! (10,000 @ $10) To participate, visit BaltimoreGives.org and select an organization to support.
“I am a big believer in the power of collectives. I grew up in the church and watched churches pool their resources every Sunday. Truthfully, each of us is a philanthropist in our own right. It’s not about the amount. When we support one another, our communities are stronger,” states Jamye Wooten, the founder of CLLCTIVLY.
Research shows that annually, approximately 95% of the $60 billion in US foundation funding goes to white-led organizations and that Black-led organizations only receive 2%. To create thriving communities across Baltimore, CLLCTIVLY is helping to lead the charge to increase investment in Black-led organizations and provide them with the resources needed to build the infrastructure and the financial sustainability needed to support their work.
“Awareness is key. There are hundreds of organizations working hard in our communities every day. The more people know about the incredible changemakers in our communities, the more inclined they will be to support,” says Wooten.
About CLLCTIVLY.org is a social impact organization in Baltimore, Maryland that serves as a resource for those seeking to find, fund and partner with Black social change organizations in the Greater Baltimore community. CLLCTIVLY aims to create an ecosystem to foster collaboration, increase social impact and amplify the voices of Black-led organizations in Greater Baltimore. CLLCTIVLY also offers no-strings-attached micro-grants of $1,000. Jamye Wooten, a co-founder of Baltimore United for Change, launched CLLCTIVLY in 2019. To join CLLCTIVLY, apply for the Black Futures Micro-Grant or to shop at the Black Futures online store, visit www.CLLCTIVLY.org
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, announced a crowdfunding campaign to support the restoration and preservation of Nina Simone’s childhood home in Tryon, NC.
This campaign, supported by artists, actors, and musicians including John Legend, will raise funds integral to the exterior restoration of the home where the celebrated singer, pianist and Civil Rights icon’s life began. The home, which has fallen into disrepair requiring urgent revitalization, was designated a National Treasure in June of 2018.
“Spaces devoted to the history and legacy of people of color, especially women of color, are far too few in America today,” said John Legend. “Preserving places like the Nina Simone childhood home will help keep her powerful story alive. This campaign pays tribute to Nina Simone’s unapologetic pursuit of musical, personal, and political freedom and I am proud to be a part of it.”
The National Trust’s crowdfunding campaign will run onIndieGoGo, beginning today, giving the public an opportunity to make donations to this effort, and to purchase newly designed Nina Simone-inspired merchandise including t-shirts, artist prints, pins, and postcards with artwork by Dare Coulter — a North Carolina-based artist working to create positive imagery of people of color. The campaign will also include the option to acquire additional merch donated by musicians including Talib Kweli and actors Mahershala Ali and Issa Rae.
“Our culture is embodied in old places and the history and stories they keep,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “This modest home in Tryon, North Carolina embodies the story of a young black girl who transcended the constraints placed on her in the Jim Crow south, to become the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. Nina Simone’s childhood home provides an important lens for examining the contours of her life, and through its preservation, we hope to celebrate and cement her legacy in our American narrative.”
In 1933, Eunice Waymon, aka Nina Simone, was born in Tryon, North Carolina. It was in this home that Simone first taught herself the piano at the age of three, performed in public for the first time at the neighborhood church where her mother preached, and where she experienced the constraints placed on African Americans in the rural Jim Crow South. This home would become the inspiration of some of her most influential music and political activism, including songs such as “Mississippi Goddam” and “Four Women.”
In recent years, the three-room, 660-square foot clapboard pier and beam house had fallen in disrepair. The vacant property was put on the market in 2016. Alarmed by the condition of the home and the risk of losing this connection to Nina Simone entirely, four African American visual artists—conceptual artist and painter Adam Pendleton, the sculptor and painter Rashid Johnson, the collagist and filmmaker Ellen Gallagher, and the abstract painter Julie Mehretu—purchased the property in 2017.
“When three fellow artists and I purchased Nina Simone’s childhood home in 2017, we did so with the desire that the site be transformed into a piece of living history, “ said artist Adam Pendleton. “This space, so integral to Nina Simone’s music and activism, can serve to carry forward her legacy and inspire future artists and musicians.”
Nina Simone’s career spanned multiple genres, four decades, several continents, and earned 15 Grammy nominations. Her songs have been professionally sampled and covered more than 500 times.
This week, the National Trust will be bringing the Nina Simone Crowdfunding campaign to the 25th annual Essence Festival, where attendees can claim exclusive perks and learn more about this National Treasure.
There is an article by Ginia Bellafante in the New York Times this morning about inspiring Bronx native Noëlle Santos, who is opening The Lit. Bar, the Bronx’s first general bookstore since Barnes and Noble shuttered its store there in 2016.
According to the article, Santos, a self-described millennial Afro Latina who was working in human resources at the time, came across a petition on Facebook in 2014 to save the Bronx’ Barnes and Noble (which it managed to for two more years). The petition pointed out how alarming it was that the Bronx was getting more and more cellphone stores and chain restaurants but would be left without a place to buy novels or training manuals or SAT preparation guides.
Santos, who grew up and went to college and graduate school in the Bronx, suddenly felt a radical need to do change things.
“Up to that point I had measured my success by how far I could get away from the Bronx,’’ she is quoted as saying. “I was disappointed in myself for thinking about leaving a community in no better condition that I had found it,’’ she said.
“I had never been inside an independent book store before I decided to open one.”
Santos took that inspiration and worked to make her dream real by calling the American Booksellers Association to learn how to do just that. From ABA Santos learned about a course called “Owning a Bookstore” – which was held in Florida. Undeterred, Santos pooled her vacation days and sick days to fly there and take it. In that course, she learned how to calculate sales projections, negotiate a lease, think about layouts, floor plans, foot traffic, etc.
When Santos returned to New York, she furthered her education by volunteering at small bookstores around the city in exchange for mentorship, and entered a statewide competition for entrepreneurs with promising business plans. She won, and with that prize money, opened a pop-up bookstore in the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
To open an actual store, however, Santos needed much more capital, so she started a crowdfunding campaign and called it, “Let’s Bring a Goddamn Bookstore to the Bronx.’’ With it, she quickly raised $170,000.
Afrotech.com‘s feature story on Kayla Michele and Chisa Egbelu, Founders of PeduL, a college scholarship crowdfunding platform, is not to be missed. The disparities in this nation’s higher education system have been in the headlines nonstop as of late, so reading about people who have been working to create and expand equity and opportunity for middle and lower-income students is a joy. So is learning of a new way to possibly support struggling college kids.
To quote from Afrotech.com:
Those systemic barriers can’t be magically waved away, but sites like PeduL help to promote equality in education. From helping students raise money to expanding to provide scholarships and different opportunities, PeduL is a useful tool that all college students should be aware of.
“Our government has slowly enabled college to shift from accessible, yet dispensable, commodity to a necessary luxury,” Michele said. “We’re creating the one-stop shop for scholarships to ensure that all students have equal access to quality education — regardless of the resources and networks available to them.”
Below is video of Kayla, a Rutgers graduate who was inspired in part to create PeduL from what she learned in her university’s Black and Latino tech program:
Anthony Forrest spent 25 years in prison before joining Planting Justice. “Working in the garden calms me down,” he said. (Credit: Jason Henry for The New York Times)
OAKLAND, Calif. — Even by the standards of the Bay Area, where sourcing local, organic chicken feed is seen as something of a political act, the spectacle of 30,000 fruit and nut trees being tended by formerly incarcerated orchardists is novel.
The green thumbs are there because of Planting Justice, a nine-year-old nonprofit that combines urban farming with environmental education and jobs for ex-offenders. From its headquarters in a pair of salvaged shipping containers on a dead-end street in East Oakland, Calif., Planting Justice has forged a trail in which revenue-generating businesses help subsidize the group’s core mission: hiring former inmates, many from nearby San Quentin State Prison, and giving them a “family sustaining” wage, along with health benefits and a month of paid leave annually. About half the total staff of 30 have served time in prison.
Two years ago, the group’s founders — Gavin Raders, 35, and Haleh Zandi, 34 — established an orchard on a weedy, vacant lot in this area of stubborn poverty, where the pruning is serenaded not by birds but droning trucks from the adjacent freeway. Planting Justice’s Rolling River Nursery now sells and ships some 1,100 varieties of potted trees and plants — among them, 65 different kinds of pomegranates, 60 varieties of figs, and loads of harder-to-find species such as jujubes (Chinese dates), Japanese ume plums and rue, an aromatic herb used in Ethiopian coffee. Signs warn visitors that they have entered a pesticide- and soda-free zone.
Though still young, the organic orchard generates roughly $250,000 of Planting Justice’s yearly $2 million operating budget. Another $250,000 comes from an edible landscaping business, in which roving horticulturalists hired by well-off clients install beehives, fruit trees, chicken coops, massive barrels for harvesting rain water and “laundry to landscaping” systems that funnel used washing machine water into the garden. The money helps subsidize pro bono edible landscapes in low-income neighborhoods.
In addition, there are the 2,000 or so “subscribers” who make monthly pledges to Planting Justice, which brings in another $450,000 annually, and grants from a variety of nonprofit organizations, among them the Kresge FreshLo program, the Thomas J. Long Foundation and Kaiser Permanente’s community benefit programs.
Planting Justice cultivates metaphors along with the food. “We’re composting and weeding the things in our lives we don’t need and fertilizing the parts of ourselves we do need,” Mr. Raders explained, sitting on a eucalyptus stump.
James Shaw, Jr. with TSU President Glover; mother, Karen Shaw, and father, James Shaw, Sr. (photo via tntribune.com) by Clare Bratten via tntribune.com
NASHVILLE, TN — Just in time for Mother’s Day week, James Shaw Jr. was honored in the presence of his parents Karen and James Sr. with a reception on Monday at Tennessee State University, his alma mater.
Tennessee State University President Glenda Glover, who helped honor Shaw with a scholarship in his name, said in a statement. “The TSU family is extremely proud of alumnus James Shaw, Jr. for his bravery and courage. His actions saved the lives of many others.”
Karen Shaw’s reaction to the public accolades from politicians, community leaders and media at even the national level was one of “amazement.”
“I spent some time just thinking about this in conversations with friends and my husband –what it is about this terrible event that caused this reaction – being in the news nationally and even internationally? My son’s life was spared and for that I am completely grateful. I believe with all of the ugliness going on in the world people just needed something good to hang onto,” said Karen Shaw.
“Whether your beliefs are spiritually based – that James was covered and protected by God, which is my belief, or that he has a higher calling – this has really brought our community, the state of Tennessee, maybe even the U.S. or globally – where people gather around one message – helping others to survive.”
But as a mother to James, she also has concerns along with her appreciation of the outpouring ofsupport. That outpouring has included $240,000 in donations to a GoFundMe campaign James started to help the families of the victims of the shooting, and appearances on national cable TV news. Shaw was honored at a Nashville Predators game, and, appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show where he met his sports hero Dwyane Wade who donated $20,000 to the GoFundMe Campaign and received another $20,000 from the show’s sponsor Shutterfly. The Steve Harvey Show announced it planned to send him on a trip to Barbados.
In the world of politics, James Shaw Jr. was honored with a resolution at the state capitol by Tennessee legislators the day after the shooting calling him a hero “twice over” and Vice President Pence called him a ‘national hero.’
Still Karen Shaw shows the steady focus of a mother for the long term health and well being of her son after the trauma of the initial event. “We are very appreciative of the attention and the opportunities that have come to James and are being offered to James. But at the end of the day, what I want is for my son’s emotional and mental health to be the same as it was on April 21st [the day before the Waffle House shooting].”
“When I saw him on CNN, I could see that he was re-living the event in his mind as he was talking about it. It is just unfair a stranger can come and ruin the lives of so many people and damage the lives of others who just happen to have been there. Not just for James but for anyone who was present.”
“We have some supports in place and we are doing our best to be sure he has the appropriate means and support. That’s the best Mother’s Day I can have – making sure he comes out of it as a healthy human being mentally and emotionally.” To read more: http://tntribune.com/community/local/nashville/james-shaw-jr-hero-to-his-mother-his-alma-mater-his-community/
Credit: Getty Images by J’na Jefferson via vibe.com Taylor Richardson, a 14-year-old aspiring astronaut from Jacksonville, Fla., exceeded her goal of raising money to send 1,000 girls to see the upcoming film A Wrinkle In Time. As of press time, her GoFundMe page for the goal has raised $17,455 of her $15,000 goal.
“This campaign is so very important to me because it will give me the opportunity to change not only girls perception of STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics] and space exploration but boys as well,” explains Richardson in her original post about her goal. A Wrinkle In Time stars Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon, and is directed byAva DuVernay. The story tells the tale of a young girl, her friend and her brother, who are transported through time and space to a new world to rescue the girl’s father, a scientist who is being held prisoner on another planet.
Richardson was recently named a member of Teen Vogue’s Class of 2017 21 under 21 for girls who are changing the world. The self-proclaimed “STEMinist” recently attended the publication’s first ever Teen Vogue Summit in Los Angeles, and also spoke on the panel of TEDxFSCJ [Florida State College at Jacksonville] Salon: Rediscovering Space. Last year, Richardson raised money to have 1,000 girls see the science film, Hidden Figures.
I cannot believe it but I have the best news ever! Thanks to the kindness of… https://t.co/GiZ94W5FKQ
“This campaign [“Send 1,000 Girls To Wrinkle In Time”] means a lot to me because it shows a female protagonist in a science fiction film,” she wrote in her most recent update. “Girls will know that the possibility of going into space, exploring other planets, being rocket scientists, engineers, mathematicians and astronauts for them is not that it is limited but limitless!” A Wrinkle in Time is based on the 1962 science fiction novel by Madeleine L’Engle. Source: https://www.vibe.com/2018/02/a-wrinkle-in-time-gofundme/
