HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE

Confronting a mental health crisis, whether suffered personally or by a loved one, is not only painful but lonely as well. Those who endure depression, anxiety or other conditions, as well as their family members often do not know where to find support from others who have experienced similar anguish. That loneliness can make the crisis seem more acute and can diminish faith in recovery.

“People generally don’t learn how to deal with mental health situations. We don’t get trained in it. We find ourselves usually in a situation where somebody has had a problem, a crisis, even hospitalization. We’re unprepared, and it can be very isolating,” says Ellen Faran ‘73, the president and CFO of the Cole Resource Center, a non-profit in Belmont, Massachusetts, and ClassACT HR73’s newest Bridge Partner. At the CRC Ellen and other volunteers endeavor “to help those who are facing mental health challenges, both individuals in recovery and family members, live healthy and productive lives.”

These volunteers are all “lay people” who have experienced mental health challenges themselves or have had a family member who has faced them, Ellen said, adding that she became involved in support work after an intense decade of caring for a family member in crisis. She describes Cole volunteers as people who know firsthand that “recovery is achievable and that open conversation and mutual support are invaluable in moving forward.”

As part of a three-person leadership team, Ellen helps not only to manage the administrative tasks of the resource center but also to guide the seven or eight other volunteers who contribute to its activities. This small team helps an estimated 500 people a year through the Center’s resource referral services and its support groups and Workforce program.

To patients and families, the chance to be heard and advised by people who have lived through similar experiences helps to banish the stigma too frequently attached to mental health crises. Peer support is particularly valuable immediately after a crisis, Ellen observed. “What we find is that the voice of lived experience is a very important and effective voice for people dealing with this.”

Other fraught transitions such as discharge from a hospital, a return to college, or a move into independent housing can also be eased with involvement in a peer support group, Ellen explained. The empathy and practical advice that strengthens a person in transition comes from people who themselves have felt the fear and aloneness of embarking on the next phase of a recovery or watching a loved one take that step. What results from this circle of receiving help and then feeling knowledgeable and strong enough to pass it on is the spirit of community on which Cole Resource volunteers pride themselves.

“We try to talk about ourselves as the community where you might enter the community in some state of crisis, but you end up staying and sharing with others and helping others, and that’s part of your journey toward recovery,” she explained.

For family members of a person with a mental health crisis, this caring community often is a godsend. Many of them, Ellen said, have no background in mental health and are unfamiliar with the meaning of their child’s or their spouse’s diagnosis. “The symptoms are very overlapping,” she added. “It can take a very long time to get an accurate diagnosis, sometimes years.” Family members often are struggling to make sense of this medical information while caring for a beloved person who has just left the hospital or has had to interrupt a year of college because of a psychotic break, she added.

Grief for the way one was before the onset of a mental health crisis or grief for lost dreams cherished for a child often befall someone who seeks out the Cole Resource Center. “You may have thought you were raising a professional lawyer, doctor, engineer, whatever, and it turns out they have a health condition that makes that overly stressful for them and they need to seek another path. You, the family member, have to let go of whatever expectation that was.” The task then is to embrace a new vision of what will be a healthy and productive life for your child, she added.

On the Cole Resource Center website, one mother recalled the distress of those first days and months as well as the haven that the Cole Resource Center became. “The warm welcome and caring at the Cole Center has already had a profound impact on my life. As the mother of a child recently diagnosed, I have felt so alone, terrified, and confused...The time, attention, endless resources and guidance so freely offered by the volunteer staff have been of such value to me.” During such a crisis the Cole volunteers can provide referrals to outpatient treatment programs, housing options, and educational programs.

“A number of women who have been part of our family support group have told us that they have moved on from just feeling helpless and hopeless to understanding how they can go forward,” Ellen said.

Fewer men come to the Cole Resource Center seeking help than women, a trend frequently observed by mental health practitioners. Yet those who have joined the men’s peer support group, men in their 40s and 50s who have been dealing with mental health conditions for years, have found encouragement sharing hopes and fears with others who have experienced similar emotions. “They find that talking with other men is much more comfortable for them than joining a mixed support group,” Ellen said.

An unexpected health crisis can cause a person to lose sight of who they are, of the vocation or skill that once shaped their identity. The Cole Resource Center’s Workforce Development Program helps to remind clients that they are more than a patient or a caregiver and supports them in finding a meaningful purpose in the workplace or elsewhere. When clients are ready to begin a job search, they often must contend with previously unforeseen challenges like the lingering effects of their illness, their loss of self-esteem or the unjust stigma of a mental health condition.

“They face a particular challenge -- if you think about how difficult job hunting is for anybody, having to present yourself and sell yourself to people and then add the layer of a recent health crisis that has likely interrupted your career path,” Ellen said.

Along with helping clients with job hunting skills like networking, resume writing, and interviewing, the Workforce program’s online Job Club includes discussions of disability rights, employee rights and whether it’s advisable at certain times or with certain employers to disclose a mental health condition. This counseling allows participants to regain a sense of purpose and confidence and to identify the right next step for them. “It’s a program for people in recovery who are ready and able to work,” Ellen said.

Since its start more than 25 years ago, the Cole Resource Center has had an informal association with McLean Hospital, the renowned psychiatric institution affiliated with Harvard Medical School. McLean has provided the center with office space and remains one of its clinical partners. That partnership has helped Ellen and the other volunteer leaders refine their programs, build their model, and learn what is effective in helping patients and family on the path to recovery.

As a non-profit offering customized, individual referrals for treatment programs, Cole volunteers have witnessed firsthand the critical shortage of clinical practitioners and other services like outpatient clinics and housing programs. During the pandemic, as depression and anxiety swelled throughout the general population, the situation worsened.

But encouraging trends suggest to Ellen that the stigma of a mental health illness is fading as more and more people come to see it as a condition that needs to be managed like any other chronic health problem. “I have a lot of faith in young people who are talking more naturally about their own situations,” she said. Ellen is also heartened by progress in the ways that individuals and families are now included in treatment planning, and by the police departments that now provide training in behavioral health response to their members.

In keeping with their determination to deliver peer support despite setbacks, the Cole Resource Center volunteers quickly adapted to the pandemic in 2020 by switching to virtual delivery of services by Zoom or phone. They discovered that many clients found online meetings easier in terms of time constraints or lengthy commutes. “Actually, we’re not making any immediate plans to return in person, and there’s no particular pressure to do that,” Ellen said.

Nonetheless, the Cole Resource Center leaders continue to grow their community gradually, often by word of mouth. With their core knowledge of resources centered in Massachusetts and New England, they have no immediate plans to expand beyond that area. At the same time these professional volunteers have worked hard in the last year on administrative tasks like improving their database and honing their communications, including adopting a new logo designed by a client with graphic expertise. They have written a procedures manual and developed new training programs for the leaders who identify resources and point clients toward them. All of these efforts enhance the value of the Cole Resource Center as a model for other communities.

As president Ellen draws on what she learned as a Winthrop House English concentrator and at Harvard Business School to guide the non-profit through a time of transformation. “Writing helps me think. I clarify my thoughts as I’m writing something,” she said. The Harvard MBA that helped her eventually become head of MIT Press before retiring also provided the accounting and management skills she uses now to buttress the Cole Resource Center.

In summing up the impact of her Harvard education on her role at CRC, Ellen said “The main thing my Harvard education left me with is this enthusiasm for learning.” That zest, she said, has helped her figure out things like how to send bulk email through the database system and how to put an image on the website. “I’m 71 years old and I’m learning new little tricks all the time. It’s really fun.”

As the Cole Resource Center stands poised for purposeful growth, the members of ClassACT HR73 can play a role by offering advice on legal, human resources and other structural issues faced by nonprofits. Working virtually, ClassACT volunteers can join as researchers who locate mental health resources or help with outreach efforts that expand the Center’s network of health care providers and other non-profits.

Finally, by donating to the Cole Resource Center, ClassACT members can ensure that the extraordinary work done by Ellen and her fellow volunteers can continue to support patients and their families at times of great need. 

The value of that work is evident in the words that one member of the Cole Resources community included on their website:

“Yesterday I was living in the shadow of my illness in isolation, loneliness, and despair. Today within the safe, supportive, and compassionate harbor of the Cole Center, I am actively living my recovery. The Cole Center has been a powerful catalyst for a dramatic renewal of my confidence and self-worth.”

*Click here to watch the video profile on White Pony Express created by our own Rick Brotman '73!*

As Americans watched in horror last March while Russian missiles slammed into Kievand other Ukrainian cities, the members of White Pony Express noticed that a neighbor had begun to collect supplies in his garage for the refugees who were now streaming into Poland. Volunteers and staff at the Pleasant Hill, Ca. non-profit, which delivers food, clothing and other essentials throughout Contra Costa County, began bringing canned food and diapers to the  neighbor to add to a hastily assembled supply line that managed to get necessities to Ukrainian troops and desperate civilians. Within a few weeks, WPE had grown its own network to deliver pallets of medical supplies, hygiene kits and clothing to Ukrainians on both sides of their country’s borders.

“Our circle is large, the need was so dire,” said Eve Birge, executive director of WPE, which has become a model for repurposing food, reducing greenhouse gasses, and creating a “circle of giving” that honors those who receive as well as those who volunteer and donate.

“We would never give out food or clothing that was not the best quality,” said Emily Karakashian ‘73, who connected the non-profit with ClassACT’s Bridge Program. “It is a sense of unity. We are one family.”

Located in an area that embraces both affluent San Francisco bedroom communities and “food deserts” like Richmond, this Bridge Project began in 2013. Its founder, Dr Carol Weyland Connor, was searching for a way to offer to the homeless people she got to know on her daily walks the produce and baked goods she saw grocery stores dumping. The volunteers she helped organize soon began going from store to store seeking donations they could then deliver to a growing number of partner non-profits who would provide the food to those in need.

Borrowing each other’s minivans and lugging ice chests, Karakashian and her fellow volunteers went from department to department in grocery stores seeking donations. Other service organizations helped them raise funds for refrigerated trucks, and a faith-based non-profit provided them with storage space and utilities. “We were all in,” Karakashian said. “We were so happy to do it. The need was so great.” She recalls calling on one butcher who catered to affluent customers. He told her, “I know what you are doing. My father is head of the Salvation Army in Mexico.” He then pulled out his best cuts of meat and put them in her basket.

White Pony Express has delivered more than 18 million tons of fresh food to approximately 120,000 people who grapple with financial hardship compounded by the pandemic. The non-profit has created more than 15 million meals for Contra Costa residents. In a fleet of refrigerated vehicles, its 17 teams of about 400 volunteers speed to stores and restaurants and bring the surplus food back to the warehouse to be sorted and organized. Finally, they deliver the food to partner organizations like food banks and schools where it can be distributed.

By rescuing fresh produce and other food stuffs that otherwise ends up in a landfill, WPE estimates it has prevented approximately 17,000 tons of greenhouse emissions. It has served as a model in a state that recently enacted a mandate that food- service businesses must donate surpluses to food-recovery organizations to combat both hunger and climate change. California has set the goal by 2025 of rescuing 20 percent of all edible food currently being discarded in order to help one in four Californians who don’t have enough to eat.

In recent years WPE has expanded its recovery efforts to include the returned clothing and dead stock that stores discard or sell for a pittance. These items, as well as donated household goods and toys, make up the inventory of the WPE General Store where clients can choose what they want. Donors are told to ask themselves this question: “Would you give it to a loved one?” Karakashian explained. “It has to be that good.”

With its ability to connect abundance to need, White Pony Express was able to step in when the Camp Fire ravaged parts of northern California in 2018. In the weeks and months after California’s worst wildfire in a century, WPE volunteers made two to three trips per week in vans packed with food. At Easter that year, volunteers prepared a brunch for the survivors, some of whom counted family members among the 85 souls who perished in that fire. “The intent was to make it a special day,” Karakashian said. “We prepared boxed meals, special treats, music. It was an uplifting day for everyone.”

That ability to bring its forces to bear rapidly on a disaster allowed WPE to expand its efforts for Ukrainians as the crisis worsened. The non-profit began to “grow its own network,” Birge said. “We started delivering pallets of medical supplies, hygiene kits, warm clothing.” In addition to a page on their website for monetary donations, WPE  set up a link that directs donors to an Amazon page where they can purchase desperately needed supplies like tourniquets and baby formula.  WPE then bundles these necessities into pallets they are now sending at a steady pace.

“The community has leaned in,” said Birge. “People are feeling that you don’t want to just sit and watch TV. You want to be part of something that helps the situation.” Of the supplies headed for the war zone, she said “We are making sure the way they are packaged and labeled will honor the people in Ukraine, and they will feel the love and respect we have for them.”

From Contra Costa the pallets make their way to several destinations in Ukraine and its neighbors. In April, 500 medical kits went to medical training centers along the border with Poland where Ukrainians came to learn healing techniques and to pick up supplies for their besieged country. Relief workers in Poland loaded other pallets of food onto trucks that drove directly into Ukraine. Partnering with organizations like the Ukraine Freedom Fund, WPE tailors its work to meet priorities and needs that change with each new attack from the Russian army. “We are moving very quickly and learning as we go,” said Birge.

Cash donations earmarked for WPE’s Ukrainian relief efforts can be made at https://www.whiteponyexpress.org/supportukraine. For those who want to purchase priority items on Amazon to be sent to  WPE, the list is available at:

https://smile.amazon.com/hz/charitylist/onboarding?orig=%2Fhz%2Fcharitylist%2Fls%2FWRMH3NK7I885%3FtriggerElementID%3DeditItemSettings_ASIN%253AB008QL0BJ0%257CATVPDKIKX0DER%26&ref_=smi_se_cl_rd_ge

White Pony Express is still dealing with a pandemic that has left an increasing number of families with food insecurity due to job loss and rising inflation. In the early months of the pandemic the non-profit scrambled to rescue 25,000 tons of food per day and then deliver it to a growing number of recipients, including 15 new partners. The demand “spiked and it has not gone back down,” said Birge. Now, however, with supply-chain problems, the amount of rescued food has dropped to 10,000 lbs. per day from 15,000 lbs.

Covid protocols have necessitated coming up with new methods of distribution to reduce the risk of infection. Like many food banks across the nation, WPE organized a “touchless” drive-through operation to share the food and clothing people urgently needed. WPE partners who had designed pantries to enable people to select items now have had to box up everything.

To cope with swelling demand, the staff came up with a “White Pony Express App” that allows volunteers to pick up and deliver small amounts of food in addition to the large quantities the organization continues to repurpose. When the non-profit workers receive word of available food, they immediately link that collection with a distribution partner and then send out a notification to all volunteers. Using the new app, a volunteer can claim the run, get the map on his or her phone, and pick up and deliver the food. “It’s so easy,” Emily said. “When I am free, I can say ‘Let me know.’”

With a storehouse of experience and constant innovations, the folks at WPE are eager to share their model. Last year the United Nations Food Rescue Initiative selected the Contra Costa non-profit as one of the solutions for expanding food supplies and reducing greenhouse gasses. The climate action staff of California Governor Gavin Newsom have also applauded WPEs initiatives as they grapple with the state’s rising number of homeless citizens and the effects of a warming planet.

The successes of  WPE can serve as a guide for ClassACT HR73 members beyond northern California who are looking for new ways to distribute fresh fruits and vegetables rather than watching produce be dumped into a landfill. “Back in the beginning when we became a bridge project, we hoped that classmates in other areas could take our model and reproduce it,” said Emily. With more and more Harvard College classes forming their own ClassACT groups, she is again optimistic that variations of WPE will soon be found in other locales.

For those ClassACT members who live in the Bay Area, White Pony Express continues to welcome their volunteer efforts for food redistribution and for Ukraine relief. Cash donations can be made at: https://www.whiteponyexpress.org/donate-funds.

A ClassACT Bridge founded in 2013, the White Pony Express networks with businesses and organizations in Contra Costa County, California to collect excess foods and goods and then distribute the items to neighbors in need. Utilizing these established connections, the community has responded with an outpouring of support for Ukrainian refugees in Poland and Ukraine. Classmate Emily Karakashian reports that the White Pony Express delivered several pallets of diapers, medical and hygiene kits, blankets, sleeping bags and warm clothing to a trusted partner organization that will ship the goods overseas. This is only the beginning as the effort to help during this crisis is ongoing. Click this link to donate.

To learn more about the war in Ukraine click on this link to view ClassACT HR73’s recent zoom: A Conversation on Russia’s War on Ukraine. 

For young people who identify as LGBTQ, these are perilous times. Adolescence and young adulthood for them often mean conflicts with family, classmates, and community members who cannot accept who they are. The results of this intolerance can be depression and anxiety, homelessness, and even suicide. Now, along with these stresses, young trans and queer people are confronting a global pandemic and renewed assaults on their rights in states like Texas,Florida and Ohio.

In our upcoming #ClassACTForum, we examine the challenges LGBTQ youth face and the ways that advocates, friends and families can offer support. Join us on Thursday, April 7 for LGBTQ Youth Rights: Protecting the Queer Frontier. Our co-sponsor for this ClassACT HR73 forum is JusticeAid, a non-profit founded by HR73 classmate Steve Milliken that raises money through music concerts to aid organizations working for justice and equality. This spring JusticeAid is focusing on SMYAL (Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocate Leaders), a Washington D.C. organization that mentors LGBTQ youth and provides housing and mental health services as well.

Our moderator will be Tazewell Jones, a JusticeAid board member and an attorney who has fought against injustice since law school when he volunteered for Lambda Legal Alliance and the Innocence Project. Our panel will include Li Nowlin-Sohl, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ Rights team which works to ensure transparency, accountability and adequate mental health treatment in jails and prisons. Li will be joined by Jorge Membreño, a social worker who has helped to provide clinical services and housing for youth and families in Brookline and Washington, and who now serves as deputy executive director of SMYAL. Our final panelist is Alana Jochum, the executive director of Equality Ohio and a co-chair of Equality Federation’s Board of Directors, which advocates in State Houses across the country to safeguard LGBTQ rights.

Register here!

ClassACT HR73 invites you to an in depth conversation about the Russian war against Ukraine on Wednesday, March 16 from 7:30 to 8:45 PM ET. Noted historian and former Washington Bureau Chief for Newsweek Evan Thomas '73 will lead a discussion with Nobel Prize winning economist Roger Myerson '73 and international security expert and retired Marine Colonel Mark Cancian '73.

Drawing on their knowledge of Ukraine’s past tragedies and its immediate crisis, these panelists will analyze the current state of the war from military, political and economic perspectives. Questions they are likely to consider include: what were Vladimir Putin and his Russian Army’s objectives when they invaded this sovereign democratic nation? Why has the Russian Army performed so badly in the early stages of this war? Will Ukraine’s army and its citizens continue to resist despite the gap in air power and other resources? What are the prospects for peace and the dangers of a protracted war? What will the economic consequences of this war and unprecedented Western sanctions be for Russia, Europe, the United States and the rest of the world? The plight of the millions of Ukrainian refugees who have fled the bombing of their homes, schools and hospitals lies at the heart of concerns about the war’s impact, a humanitarian crisis the panelist are certain to address.

After a 40 minute conversation these experts will open the floor to questions from the audience.

This Zoom conversation is open to everyone. Please share this invitation with anyone you know who is deeply concerned about the fate of the Ukrainian people and global stability.

Register here!

We provided an extensive update on Gerrymandering and Voter Suppression in the February ClassACT Newsletter through a video interview conducted by Rick Brotman '73 and Jacki Swearingen '73. Here are recent developments.

As of the last week in February, 42 states had adopted their districting plans for the 2022 House race, although more than a dozen plans are facing challenges in court. With the 2022 state primaries close at hand, politicians have been scurrying to redraw voting districts to take into account the 2020 census numbers. They are focusing on the creation of new districts in areas with a growing population and the elimination of districts in areas where the number of voters has been shrinking. This has led to much creative use of the new tools that enable precise gerrymandering, down to the precinct level. 

Not surprisingly, the overall trend has been that in states where the legislature carries out the redistricting (the case in most states), the gerrymandering has benefited the dominant political party. Since Republicans control more legislatures, you would expect that the net gains overall to be greater for the G.O.P.  than for Democrats. But in fact, the Democrats have been able to tilt things their way very effectively in the states where they call the shots, such as Illinois and New York. For their part, Republicans have used their redistricting power mostly to make existing Republican-controlled districts even more one-sided, to protect incumbents and keep those districts Republican-controlled well into the future, rather than trying to flip as many districts as possible in their favor right now.

In New York, an advisory commission whose members were split 50/50 between the two parties deadlocked and failed to propose a unified redistricting plan. Instead, each side presented its own plan, one drawn to the Democrats’ advantage and the other to the Republicans’. The legislature, which is Democratic-controlled, ignored the two plans and drew up its own, which shifted three seats toward Democrats. Furthermore, the legislature did this in a rush, refusing to hold any public hearings to get input on the proposed maps.

Pennsylvania is a 50-50 battleground state that, because of effective Republican gerrymandering after the 2010 census, has a decidedly Republican-leaning legislature. The legislature created a redistricting plan very favorable to Republicans and sent it to the governor for approval. When the governor, a Democrat, refused to approve the plan, the dispute went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The court delegated the redistricting task to an independent expert from Stanford University. The expert created a much more equitable plan, which the state will use in the 2022 elections.

We anticipated in our ClassACT HR73 Gerrymandering Primer that a lot of gerrymandering would take place in 2022 because of faster, cheaper tools available and less time for scrutiny, given COVID-related delays in releasing the 2020 census data. What is remarkable, however, is that now so much gerrymandering takes place in the open, blatantly. In the past politicians tried to keep the proceedings hidden from public scrutiny, behind closed doors.

Each party seems proud of its prowess in gerrymandering and all but flaunts partisan map-drawing as a valuable tool for advancing its interests. Here is what is equally surprising: how much traction the analytics for detecting gerrymandering have been gaining. The Stanford expert who redrew the Pennsylvania voting districts proved to the court, based on his quantitative techniques and analysis of voter data, that his redistricting plan was fair and balanced.

Furthermore, the State Supreme Court of Ohio has used such analytics to throw out the extremely gerrymandered plans created by the Republican-dominated legislature. North Carolina’s Supreme Court also rejected a voting map because of racial bias, basing its ruling on the results of analytical techniques similar to those we discussed in the Primer.

There is another encouraging trend, despite the overall trend toward more abuse of gerrymandering tactics. The independent-commission model seems to be gaining some momentum. The model has produced fair maps in California since 2011. Colorado and Michigan implemented independent commissions last year, and they appear to be working well. Under this approach, which we favor, politicians do not appoint the members; the commissioners are balanced among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; and the commission, not the legislature, has the power to draw up the voting maps.

As we enter the primaries, and then the general elections, we will see what kind of effect these changes, both negative and positive, will have on voting results. Stay tuned.

 -Jim Harbison & Ryan O'Connell

UPDATE ON GERRYMANDERING

Video by Rick Brotman '73 Last June, ClassACT HR73 presented an eye-opening forum on gerrymandering featuring our classmates Ryan O’Connell and Jim Harbison. Here is an 18-minute video update, shot by Rick Brotman ‘73, in which, interviewed by Jacki Swearingen ‘73, Jim and Ryan provide timely analysis on the current state of gerrymandering in the nation. Click the image of the video and you can watch it on our youtube page! If you missed the original forum, click on this link to view it. Also, here is the link to the Primer on Gerrymandering.

CLASSACT FORUMS RETURN AGAIN THIS SPRING! ClassACT Forums have been on a winter break, but we are gearing up to return this spring with a forum on LGBTQ youth: the many challenges they face, the policies that affect their lives, and the impact on their mental health, development and well-being. This forum is presented in conjunction with ClassACT partner JusticeAid. This year JusticeAid has chosen SMYAL as their beneficiary, and we are pleased to announce that an activist from SMYAL will be a member of our panel. Dr. Harold Cottman ‘73, a psychiatrist who has served members of the LGBTQ community and others who have been marginalized, will also be on the panel. The date, our moderator and other panelists are still in development. Later in the year we plan to present forums on health, voting rights and our changing climate.

Graphic by Pamela Garlick Classmates engaged in planning the first forum are: Steve Milliken, Founder of JusticeAid, Therese Steiner, ClassACT HR73 and JusticeAid board member, Donna Brorby, Rick Brotman, Harold Cottman, Marion Dry, Sara Greenberg, Andrea Kirsh, Nancy Saarman, Lindsey Straus, Jacki Swearingen, and Sarah Ulerick. We hope you will join us for all of our 2022 forums. Stay tuned!

JUSTICEAID FOCUSES ON LGBTQ CIVIL RIGHTS For 2022, JusticeAid will focus on LGBTQ civil rights, specifically the challenges faced by queer and trans youth who are often marginalized, criminalized, and dehumanized. JusticeAid’s 2022 grantee-partner, Washington, D.C.-based SMYAL (Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders), creates opportunities for LGBTQ youth to build self-confidence, develop critical life skills, and engage their peers and community through service and advocacy. SMYAL’s work includes mental-health counseling; after-school programming; teaching leadership, advocacy, and training skills; and providing housing for homeless youth (40% of homeless youth across the nation self-identify as queer.) Click here to learn more.

Photo from smyal.org SAVE THE DATES: MAY 15TH & 16TH IN NYC MAY 15TH: JUSTICEAID/ RIVERSIDE CHURCH PUBLIC FORUM For the fourth year in a row, JusticeAid is partnering with The Riverside Church in New York City to host a free program that spotlights JusticeAid’s annual issue. This year’s in-person Forum will center on the societal and legal challenges faced by LGBTQ youth, with music and other arts elements. MAY 16TH: JUSTICEAID CONCERT AT CITY WINERY CELEBRATING THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF BESSIE SMITH Not to be missed! Join classmates Steve Milliken, JusticeAid Co-Founder & CEO, and Therese Steiner, ClassACT HR73 and JusticeAid Board member, and lovers of justice, jazz and the blues, for an incredible night of music honoring “the Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith. The concert at the new home of City Winery in New York City will raise vital funds to support the work of SMYAL. FEATURING LGBTQ ART & ARTISTS Each month, JusticeAid is featuring films, artists and musicians that illuminate the LGBTQ experience, in the hopes that these works will spark conversation between friends, colleagues and family members, and deepen our understanding of queerness. Check it out!

Since we last heard from him in August, David Weeks ‘73 reports that progress has been made on his projects with the Maasai community in the district of Narok, about a three-hour drive southwest of Nairobi, Kenya. He and his partner and former student, Kikanae Punyua, have constructed a medical dispensary, the Osiligi (Hope) Medical Dispensary, for emergency care and to support the childbirth needs of women. In addition, they have almost completed the construction of a facility that will house a pharmacy, dentist’s office, vision center and lab for the making of traditional Maasai medicine to complement western medicine. They have received a $5,000 grant from the Fund for the Future of Our Children Foundation in Washington, D.C., but still need an additional $20,000 to complete construction. Following the construction, a wish list of equipment needs will be developed.

As part of his overall vision for the community, David is now in the process of working with an architect on a design for a small hospital ward to provide a residential facility for staff and patients. He has already established a MOU with the Narok Health Department which has staffed and made the Osiligi (Hope) Medical Dispensary operational. The Narok Health Department is expected to also support the pharmacy/dental/vision center and the hospital ward, once completed.

When the three medical facilities are complete, David hopes to see a community center constructed to support traditional Maasai song and dance school competitions and presentations to tourists, to house artifacts from their proud past and to provide a display and marketing room for the beaded handicrafts of the women. He is involved with the Fair Trade Movement and has been supporting the Osiligi Women’s Craft Cooperative and selling their beaded jewelry in Maryland.

Please see David’s GoFundMe site for further information about projects and the history of his association with this Maasai community in Kenya.

In addition to his work in Kenya, David is involved with the establishment of the Salih Self Development Center in Ghana. Along with another former student, Ibrahim (Anyars) Salih, David has developed a 501(c)3 to help support the Center to address the needs of the community in Kumasi. A sewing vocational training program and a computer design program have been developed to provide valuable skills to the youth in the Aboabo township. Ibrahim has also been consulting with Kumasi government officials who have wanted to provide more vocational training in the industrial arts: plumbing, electrical, carpentry, automotive and computer. Since the programs take place on rented property, David and his team have wanted to establish a centralized Salih Self Development Center. Land has been purchased on the outskirts of Kumasi, a well has been dug and plans have been drawn for the construction of the center. The design for the facility will be large enough to provide the support being sought by the Kumasi government. David also hopes to establish a MOU with the Kumasi government to assist in staffing this facility upon completion. It is estimated to cost $500,000.

Essential to the work of David’s projects in Kenya and Ghana are his former students. In Kenya, former student Kikanae Punyua graduated from the University of Maryland with an economics degree and is presently studying for his MBA at a university in Nairobi while working at a hotel in Narok. He lives in Narok with his wife and two daughters. In Ghana, Ibrahim (Anyars) Salih graduated from Hood College with a business degree and is presently working with a company in San Diego and living there with his wife and daughter.

Please check out both websites to gain a better appreciation of what David and his former students have been doing:

• Osiligi Hope Foundation

• Salih Center for Self Development

It is with great joy that ClassACT HR73 welcomes Ron Dieckmann, Dan Hoffheimer, and Henrietta Wigglesworth Lodge to the board. Each of them brings with them great skills, wonderful vision, and inspiring enthusiasm. As ClassACT has grown, so has our need for strong leadership and innovation. We look forward to discovering the contributions that each of these wonderful classmates will make to our work. Please join us in a toast to Henrietta, Dan and Ron, and take a look at their bios on our leadership page!