The Journey of 1000 Miles Begins With a Single Step
Spoiler alert:
WE.
DID.
IT.
On the tail of the Atlanta shootings, feeling despondent and melancholy, and trying to do as my Mom & Matt always say (“channel your energy”), I set up a month-long fundraiser for Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The goal had to be $10k, because while I’ve raised money for causes before, I had never raised as much as $10k in a single go. So why not shoot for the stars?
One week ago, I issued a challenge to everyone, and most of all — myself. It was a little nudge, to have my community prove me wrong.
With three days left to go, 63 people had donated via my link on Instagram. But we were only at $4000k. In the final three days, through the direct link, we got to $5470.82, with a total of 84 people donating. I felt good about it, but not great. Why?
- I didn’t believe $10k should be hard to hit. It would’ve been 100 people donating $100 to fight hate. Or 200 people donating $50 to denounce white supremacy.
- Last week was a super rough week. The trial for the police officer who murdered George Floyd was all I could think about. And my mindset going into Tuesday’s verdict announcement was all wrong. I told myself I was going to be elated if the verdict went “the right way”. Instead, when Judge Peter Cahill announced the verdict on each of three successive counts, I felt greater and greater dread. While I deeply wanted to be happy, I couldn’t help but realize that it took our systems 11 months to convict a man for murdering another human being in full daylight, and the fact that we all had to hold our breath because the outcome could have been the complete opposite, was 100% absolutely depressing. Let’s not forget the three other officers who were at the scene still have yet to go to trial (set for August 2021).
- On top of this, before the night was over, two other Black children had died at the hands of the police (RIP 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant and one other that I cannot find at the moment). And in the morning, I learned of yet another murder of a young Black kid — 17-year-old Anthony Thompson, while he was at his high school in Tennessee. Do we need any more evidence that being killed while Black in America is our country’s worst epidemic?
Driving home on Friday from dropping my daughters at their schools, I was gearing up for yet another workday. And trying to reconcile in my head that we hadn’t hit the goal. But also coaching myself through the despondency that you have to start somewhere. And we always knew that stomping out hatred would be a lifelong journey. “So cheer up, Ang — this was a good start.” And frankly, I had already drafted a post in my head…some thinly veiled “Buckle Up for the Long Haul” rock ’em, sock ’em, go get ’em (aka TRY AGAIN next month) post. Rah Rah!
Out of seemingly nowhere, a text from a mentor, coach, good friend (lucky me, same person!)
“Hi”
“I just noticed the justice for AAPI fund closes soon. I never told you what I donated sorry. I gave {$XXXX} and with the match that’s {$XXXX} so you’d hit the goal! Hope that help keeps the momentum rolling. <kissy face emoji>”
I was stunned. Had to pull over to the side of the road!
Humanity…
…came…
…through.
It restored my faith in everything. The world could continue spinning on its axis, because people actually do care about equity, justice, belonging, inclusion, and all of those good things.
Minutes later, a text from another good friend.
“Hey. On a non-work related note, I hope it’s ok, but I donated to the AAJC through Nike giving, due to the match. It’s only a couple hundred, but 2x helps a bit and it’s a good cause.”
So there ya go. We’re at $10k PLUS, this month, because ya’ll care. I wanted badly to put up the honor roll of donors, which is everyone, but especially those that donated extremely generously, and those who donated multiple times over the course of the month (we had 3 people do this). One woman donated generously three times. But I am not publicly announcing names because I know these friends would be mortified at being glorified.
But, I hope you didn’t think we were going to stop there. This is my Birthday Month! (I’m joking because I am usually super reticent to celebrate my birthday in a loud way.) But this year, because I’m more than halfway to 70, we’re going to do it big.
The goal this month — is to raise $15k. We’re upping the stakes. Mostly because it’s bold and ambitious, but also because WE. CAN. DO. THIS. And I’ve decided I’m going to pick a different organization each month of this year for all of us to donate more. If you’re trying to figure out your family’s giving plan, as Matt and I have been trying to do, I hope you’ll consider coming back here monthly to learn which organization I’ve picked, and tossing some benjamin’s to those worthy and perpetually under-resourced orgs. As an incentive, I’ll work hard for this. By writing about race, gender, justice, injustice, alllll month long.
So for the (almost-here) month of May, I’ve chosen the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO). I first learned about this organization from my pal Liza, and have steadily sought to understand their mission, vision and offerings. I believe deeply in their work, and it is close to my heart, as a half-generation Chinese-American, born in Hong Kong.
IRCO serves the holistic needs of Oregon’s immigrants, refugees and mainstream community members. As a community-based organization, we empower children, youth, families and elders from around the world to build new lives and become self-sufficient by providing more than 200 culturally and linguistically specific social services. Source: https://irco.org/who-we-are/.
My family moved to the U.S. when I was five, and I watched (and lived) as my parents and extended family all navigated the settling and assimilation (yes, I said it — assimilation) process. We did not seek out the social services offered by an organization like IRCO (either because we were too proud, or didn’t know it existed). But through my recent work with CASA, I learned that as kids, with a single-income earner (my Mom), we did qualify for a lot of the public subsidies for families living below a certain living wage. Though we “made it” without ever having to access help, many immigrant and refugee families are not nearly as lucky. In a later post, I’ll share more about this organization, as well as my family’s immigration and my experiences growing up.
So this month, we’re going to throw everything we have toward IRCO. To up the ante, Matt & I will offer the following. For each person in my network who shares this with their friends, if their friends donate and you let me know who donated how much, we will match the friend who had the highest total dollar donations of all of their friends combined. So for example, let’s say Matt and I have a friend named Kara. And 10 of Kara’s friends, call them Joanna ($10), John ($30), Carlo ($40), Kyle ($25), Elise ($50), Nicos ($48), Andrew ($35), Emily ($60), Dave ($38), and Ryan ($40) made the aforementioned donations. The sum of those is $376. Matt and I would make match an additional $376 to the cause.
**Caveat here is that we can only match the individual’s donation, not any company matching that individual may have access to.**
Make sense? If not, reach out. We need two winners this month — IRCO and Rockstar Friend.
Tell all of your friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, parents at your kids’ schools, your grocery store clerk, your nail tech, your mechanic, your dentist,…you get the idea! Together, as cheesy as it sounds - YOU and WE can make a more just, more equitable, more hopeful world.
