Hello Seattle Peoples Party Community –
2020 has brought with it a whirlwind of uncertainty and confusion. Nonetheless, the one thing we know for sure is that our communities are resilient and creative. We will get through this together. With this truth as our mandate, each core member of the Seattle Peoples Party is actively participating in mutual aid efforts and community-led movements for justice. Below you will find links to community relief efforts to support, community organizing efforts and local grassroots organizations to amplify and uplift.
Covid-19 is exasperating the pre-existing conditions of inequity and injustice across the globe, the United States and our local community in the Pacific Northwest. It is up to us to organize horizontal mutual aid efforts as well as systems change.
The City of Seattle, under “normal” circumstances, has continuously failed to provide a supportive and compassionate community for ALL of our residents. Residents without access to housing are not only suffering with access to shelter and clean water but they are at grave risk of COVID-19. It is only a matter of time until our loved ones who are incarcerated in jails, prisons and detention centers are victims of an uncontrollable outbreak. Our city has routinely failed to respond effectively to the public safety and public health needs of all residents by investing in social housing, access to employment and education, food sustainability, and free mass transit for all.
This Sunday SPP Board decided to make a contribution of $2000 to the Tax Amazon/Tax Big Business efforts. Now more than ever we need resources which focus specifically on lifting up our most marginalized communities and ensuring access to social housing and a green new deal. SPP recognizes that our tax system is the most powerful tool we have to redistribute concentrated wealth and invest in our communities.
In this newsletter you will find some recommendations on mutual aid networks, campaigns and movement work to support. If you know of other frontline, grassroots efforts, please share them with the Seattle Peoples Party for future newsletters.
Lastly, we’d also like to announce the results of the vote to support Sherae Lascelle’s campaign for the 43rd Legislative District Position 2. Below you will find more information regarding their campaign and ways to support! We are thrilled to partner with Sherae as a candidate and community organizer.
In Solidarity,
SPP Core Organizing Committee
Community Relief Efforts
COVID-19 mutual aid Seattle
CMA-Seattle is an ad-hoc grassroots community-led coalition which focuses on horizontal mutual aid, abolition through compassionate and supportive public health and public safety strategies, and worker organizing.
Artist Relief Fund started by Ijeoma Oluo and Gabriel Teodros working in partnership with Langston.
Trans Women of Color Solidarity Network Go Fund Me
Green Light Project Sani- Sex Worker Aid Network Initiative support sex workers in Seattle that are producing hand sanitizer as a means of mutual and horizontal aid. You can donate to the Go Fund me to help support the business and provide free hand sanitizer to people in our community or email [email protected] to purchase bulk orders of hand sanitizer at wholesale cost.
Relief Fund for Undocumented Folks: A coalition of organizations led by Undocumented peoples have created a fund that is dedicated to providing relief for undocumented individuals who cannot access various forms of government aide. Applications are now open for aid. If you are able, please do donate to the fund as well.
Community Organizing
No New Women’s Prison: Stop Washington from building a new prison at Maple Lane. Campaign Update: Victory! This week, Thurston County voted to remove the prison project from its docket of decisions for the year citing community opposition. People power does the job. Join our campaign to keep up the fight to stop DOC from opening a new women's prison anywhere in WA! We expect the DOC will try to build somewhere else or will try again next year. Prisons do not keep us safe. We must organize against all efforts to expand prisons. Free them all!
COVID-19 mutual aid Seattle
Letters regarding jails, prisons and courts:
Tax Amazon/Tax Big Business Legislation: There is currently legislation sponsored by Council Member Sawant and Morales which includes covid-19 relief as well as funding for housing, services, and green new deal housing related priorities. See the link above for more details. The legislation would tax Amazon and the other 2 percent largest companies – those with annual payrolls of at least $7 million – in Seattle. It exempts all nonprofits, grocery stores, government and educational employers, regardless of size. Tax Amazon Downloadable Info Graphics
Tax Amazon Ballot Initiative: The Tax Amazon Coordinating Committee is also moving forward with the ballot initiative campaign. The campaign is facing challenges due covid-19, but is still striving to move forward.
Local Grassroots Organizations (Developing COVID-19 Responses)
WA-BLOC
1) "Feed the Beach", every Tuesday and Thursday we partner with BIPOC food providers/restaurants to provide 150-200 meals to the RB community.
2) Every Thursday WA-BLOC partners with RBHS's Social Work and Teen Health Center teams to host "Therapeutic Thursdays" which is a virtual socio-emotional check-in and counseling support space, hosted at the WA-BLOC office.
3) In early April WA-BLOC received $50K from Seattle Foundation and dispersed funds directly to 100 families ($500 each) who voiced financial hardship between Rainier Beach HS and Emerson elementary school.
4) WA-BLOC is developing a Restorative Justice team to host virtual support circles and community building circles with families and scholars.
Community Kitchen Collective (Musang, That BROWN girl Cooks, Guerilla Pizza Kitchen, Feed the People, Sugar Hill) Media about Community Kitchen Collective
SURGE Reproductive Justice is providing mutual aid to BIPOC and BIPOC Queer communities.
Creative Justice & Community Passageways are local organizations working to support youth and families struggling through the juvenile criminal legal system. We are already seeing increases of criminalization under Covid-19 emergency policies. CJ & CP are working to push governmental institutions to respond with care and restoration rather than punitive and retributive processes. Covid-19 is exasperating the pre-existing conditions of economic and racial inequality. We must respond with restoration and care if we are to end mass incarceration and see Zero Youth Detention become a reality in Seattle/King County.
Creative Justice is transitioning to a digital delivery model for continuing services, providing grocery supports, and continuing their weekly stipend program. CJ is in need of technology and internet donations, tech support, and additional funds to provide more grocery & financial support to youth and families. Lastly, CJ is partnering with an arts therapist to provide therapeutic arts curricula to youth during these uncertain times.
Seattle Council PTSA is connecting Seattle Public Schools families who are most resourced with those who are most impacted at this time via this outreach form. Fill it out whether you are offering or requesting support.
COVID-19 Supports Needed
For nearly 20 years, East African Community Services has existed to serve East African immigrant and refugee communities in South Seattle and King County. EACS is an East-African, woman-led 501c3 organization that serves community, as community. We offer culturally-anchored youth education and mentorship programs such as our K-12 Afterschool and Summer programs, MathCode+Robotics (S.T.E.M preparatory classes), Strong Girls Powerful Leaders mentorship program, Youth Leadership Training Program (YLC) and Our Educating the Horn College Preparatory Weekends (offered all year-round). Annually, we serve more than 400 youth.
EACS understands that it is impossible for youth to succeed without parental partnership and “buy-in” to the change. Therefore, we convened the Parent Leadership Training Institute (PLTI) in 2018. The PLTI exists to train East African parents in civic, political and school-house advocacy. The Institute also works to address issues of domestic violence and mental health through our convenings. The PLTI has also proven to be invaluable in helping East African parents to organize against systematic Anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia saturating the Seattle Public School systems. Annually, the PLTI serves more than 200 East African parents. Lastly, EACS has offered U.S. Citizenship Classes to East African immigrant and refugee families. To date, we’re proud to have been a part helping 300 individuals become U.S. Citizens.
COVID-19 has deeply humbled the entire human family. Like most other POC-led nonprofits, EACS has received unprecedented demand for support from our community. A significant portion of our income-earners work in the gig economy, classified as Lyft or Uber drivers. COVID-19 has decimated the rideshare market. The rest of our low-income families work in occupations determined to be non-essential. Consequently, COVID-19 has rendered more than 90% of the families we served unemployed. Every week, EACS receives approximately 70+ calls, emails and texts from community members looking for help with basic human needs (food, baby supports, utilities and rent).
Urgent Covid19 Community Response
To meet the unprecedented demand for help, EACS Staff and our Board mobilized to create a COVID-19 Community response strategy. This strategy included resourcing Covid-19 related grants at all levels of government and from private foundations. From the beginning of the crisis, EACS quickly ran through our organizational cash reserves to immediately get stockpiles of basic human needs (critical baby supports, food for families). Additionally, COVID-19 necessitated the immediate upgrading of 5 of our part-time staff members to full-time, increasing our capacity to engage critical resource navigation assistance for support requests coming from East Africans throughout the state of Washington.
Supporting Community with Critical Supports
To date, EACS has issued more 250 food vouchers for low-income families on a first-come, first-serve basis. We deliver 160 diapers and other critical baby supports to families living in South Seattle and SeaTac every week. Additionally, EACS has helped families requesting support with utilities and rent from our organizational reserves. This reserve fund has now been depleted.
Taking Our Programs Virtual
EACS Staff are working virtually from home during the COVID-19 crisis. However, every day a two-staff person team works from our offices (practicing aggressive social distancing). This is vital for the families that come to our office for emergency support and, in particular, language support help navigating government issued Covid-19 related supports (i.e, understanding eviction moratoriums, working with utility companies to reduce or delay payments, etc.).
We can’t stop serving our youth. Therefore, EACS has created our Virtual Service Delivery Model (VSDM). The VSDM utilizes Google Classrooms, Zoom, Facetime and WhatsApp to virtually deliver our K-12 Afterschool, Mentorship and Prenatal Home Visiting Programs. Demand for our programs has remained steady. We attribute this to the strong bonds our youth and families have with each other. However, a sizable portion of our low-income families are not able to experience EACS’ Virtual learning and community engagement for lack of laptops or personal computers.
Urgent Covid19 Community Needs
To better serve our youth and families, isolated at home and to insure East African kids don’t fall academically behind, EACS need help acquiring 60 laptops for our families. Additionally, any resources to help with basic human needs (food, utilities and rent) for our families would be greatly appreciated. It’s heartbreaking for us to have a community with so much need and not have the resources to help them. We are here for community, as community. We will continue to look for resources to help East African refugee and immigrant families survive during the COVID-19 crisis.
Electoral Campaigns
SPP is excited to announce that in March, the membership officially voted to approve Core’s recommendation to run Sherae Lascelles, candidate for the 43rd LD position 2, as a Peoples Party candidate. We are humbled to be able to support a candidate that invests in the power of using a bottom up strategy and bringing in those in our community who are in the margins of the margin. It is this intentional centering of our community that is the core of Sherae’s campaign and the core of SPP’s values.
Over the next few weeks you will receive opportunities and updates regarding ways that you can support Sherae’s campaign. As an SPP candidate you can expect Sherae to build out their policy platform through a community led process, provide frequent and consistent opportunities for the community to connect with Sherae throughout the campaign, and be accountable to the values of SPP. As our second candidate in the history of SPP, we will be calling on our membership to bring the energy and commitment to making sure that Sherae Lascelles is our next State Representative for the 43rd LD.
https://www.sheraeforstate.com (link that is inserted above)
