First off, I want to express a deep thank you.

For the first time since we began setting goals, we made our Basic Budget in two weeks.

Actually, we were there this weekend, and I was planning to tell you all this then. It’s a big deal.

A big deal that got usurped by all the activity that went on last weekend, causing my Admin team and myself to devote ourselves to monitoring posts, and deep engagements. We loved it all, but that also meant that we couldn’t do all the fun stuff, like this message.

Just think of it. Lace considering talking about funding as fun!

But yes. It is gratifying, and so affirming to know that we have the month covered, and that all signs point to this trend being strong enough and durable enough for the coming months as well. I am humbled and galvanized.

Usually, what we would do is to build toward our Enhanced Budget, which, as I have noted before allows us to more reliably cover the cost of staff, and of contributors. Not this month though.

This month, I want to focus the rest of the month on reaching out to our greater world. We make a difference here, but this space exists to buttress our efforts to be a force for good and for change in the wider society.

There is no way we can live out this ethos without awareness and acknowledgment of what is going on with all of us with the coronavirus, and how it has deeply impacted every area of society. We have all felt its effects.

What is true, what is always true, is that crises of this magnitude affect the most marginalized the hardest.

This is where we must pivot.

The Admin team and I have been compiling orgs that we feel make a difference, and we want to urge us – as a community who is learning to lead in our offline communities with passion, grace, and resolve – to address this crisis head on.

We have identified three funding efforts where the urgency is great, and where we have faith in both the heart and the effectiveness of the people who are leading the efforts.

In Seattle, one of the first US places the virus was found, there is a real divide. Seattle and its environs are known for its wealth, based in tech. But, as in other US cities, there is another side of the Pacific Northwest that is largely untouched by that wealth. Guadalupe M. M. says, “Undocumented folks along with elderly and disabled folks not only see this as a public health concern but as an economic crisis. As student organizers at South Seattle College, my peers and I have created this fund to provide rent assistance to undocumented people in Seattle affected by the pandemic.” We will support their effort, Rent Fund for Undocumented People-COVID19.

San Diego is another place bifurcated by affluence and deep poverty. San Diego isn’t just San Diego; it’s also part of a region that includes Tijuana and the areas just north of Mexico who are feeling deep pain. We have partnered with Birdie Gutierrez’s Bridge of Love Across the Border before, and we feel that we can give a big assist in her efforts on both sides of the border. Birdie says “We are especially interested in supporting families affected with COVID19. At this time we could certainly use financial support as we are almost completely out of funds to pay for storage and gas to deliver donations.”

The third effort we desire to support is COVID-19 Mutual Aid Fund for LGBTQI+BIPOC Folks, launched by Amita Swadhin on March 14, 2020. They say, “The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the particular vulnerability of queer, transgender, non-binary and/or intersex Black, Indigenous folks and other LGBTQI+ people of color (QTIBIPOC folks). Many folks in our community are self-employed or in the service economy, and living with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and/or compromised immune systems.”  This effort has received requests for over $2 million in support and aid. Right now, their goal is to give every person who applied at least $100.

I have great faith that our community can do what we do best, make our outward praxis aligned with our inward journeys.

To engage with this effort, please go to our PayPal account paypal.me/LaceonRace or click the Contribute button on laceonrace.com. On the page where PayPal gives you a space for notes, please indicate which of the three efforts you would like to support. You can also designate “general,” and we will allocate accordingly. We will do our best to honor that. If, however, it gets lopsided for one organization over the others, we hope you will allow us the discernment to keep things as balanced and as equitable as possible.

I want orange trees everywhere. If we do well in funding these three, we can find other places where we can direct our efforts and make a real difference.

So, the Ask for the latter part of March is in service to all of the above efforts. We have enough; and next month we perhaps can return to our collective task of insuring the health and growth of this space, but for now, we feel strongly compelled to look outward at the world around us and succor and support those with whom we stand.

I would like to see as much effort toward others as we have found for ourselves. Lace On Race is strong and becoming more and more sustainable because of you. We can afford this pivot, and we know the dividends, in material support, in service to our praxis, in answering the question of who we are, individually and corporately, in a way only we walkers can do.

Thank you for allowing me to make a difference with you. We do not walk alone or only for ourselves. This is an opportunity to walk beside those we will never see, but to whom we are connected.

Let our roots intertwine, and let us harvest from the trees we have cultivated to nurture and support others.

Sustainers, if you have not yet engaged with your commitment, this is the time to do so.

What a gift, to be able to do this. What a gift we are to each other. What an amazing thing that we can offer ourselves to the Other, in service to our ethos, mission, and method.

As always, my thanks.