Like so many of you, our feelings about Thanksgiving are...complicated. While it can be a joyous day of gratitude and reconnection, it is also a stark reminder of the oppression of Native Americans, the inequities that persist today, and a charge to do better.

While we are thankful for the strides made toward social justice and racial health equity, we must acknowledge that our systems, including healthcare and social services, continue to benefit only some and not all. The pandemic continues to disproportionately ravage Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander and Native Hawaiian Americans and members of Indigenous nations in every single state (where racial data is available) are contracting COVID-19 and dying from it at higher rates than White Americans. 

We hope you will join us today by investing in the long-term solutions that strengthen the community-based workforce, enable access to critical resources like safe and affordable housing, ensure essentials like the upcoming COVID-19 vaccine are delivered equitably, and dismantle existing inequities, before the next pandemic. With your help, we can shore-up the capacity of community-anchored solutions today to address the current challenge of COVID-19, while also mitigating future crises. 

You can support our work in several ways:   

• Give a cash gift: By making critical investments in people and bolstering community-led innovations, we can prepare our health systems to respond to and not get ravaged by crises. 
• Amazon Smile: Adding us as an Amazon Smile partner costs nothing to you but is an ongoing help to Health Leads. Simply shop at smile.amazon.com/ch/45-0484533 or with AmazonSmile ON in the Amazon Shopping app and AmazonSmile donates to Health Leads.
• Support the Principles for Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Development & Distribution: Support and share these co-created guiding principles for authentically engaging communities to address vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccine acceptance and access. 

Let’s rebuild together today for a better, healthier, and more equitable tomorrow,

Aziza Musa, Vice President, Business Partnerships & Investor Relations