We have mentioned this on Instagram, Twitter, and our newsletter: gather here was created by and owned/operated by a multi-racial Filipina American. We also employ three other Asian Americans. We make up a 1/5 of the gather here team. The past year has taken a toll on me, Virginia, doing my best to keep our small business going through a pandemic as well as taking up space to acknowledge the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. Sometimes that acknowledgement has left me absolutely exhausted and unmotivated. Other times I'm fired up and ready to go. UPDATE: We donated $1200 to the AARW!
This April the recipient of our We Care Wednesday initiative is the Asian American Resource Workshop. AARW is a political home for pan-Asian communities in Greater Boston founded in 1979 in Chinatown and now located in Dorchester. They are a member-led organization committed to building grassroots power through political education, creative expression, and issue-based and neighborhood organizing.
Each month AARW hosts an all member space that are not only general membership meetings but also political education/skills building sessions. The March All-Member Space focused on holding "space for our community to move through what's in our hearts and bodies together." AARW's Story Project (launched in 2017) documents and archives the histories and experiences of Asian American communities through our own lens, whether it be about immigration, displacement, home, family, etc. "Through the act of storytelling, we envision that this project can serve as a tool to connect personal experiences to larger social issues impacting our communities."
Above image: AARW member leaders marched today for Asian immigrants and refugees and ALL immigrants and people of color who are criminalized, locked up, and deported.
*Since launching the We Care Wednesday initiative in January 2017 we have donated over $44,500 to a variety of nonprofits doing essential work in our community as well as other places. From the Mayor's Disaster Fund to Girls Rock Boston to Movement Voter Project and Found In Translation. We select organizations that we feel represent not only our commitment to a better, more equitable world but also our desire to "do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."