Help me fund our big plans for 2020!

This might sound silly, but I used to daydream about working for Clean Air. 

I would spend moments of downtime at a desk job, reading through the staff bios on the website, imagining myself listed there: a member of this brilliant, courageous team, daring to rethink the world around us in ways that are kinder, more just, where ordinary people have power over the decisions that shape their communities.

My first job at Clean Air lasted only a couple of months -- canvassing neighborhoods in Buffalo and Tonawanda to talk to community members about turning out to vote -- but even in the whirlwind of an election season, I knew the skills and lessons I was learning and the relationships I was developing were lifelong ones.

I had done similar work before, and have since, with other entities and organizations -- political campaigns, both voluntary and paid, for grassroots candidates and establishment Democrats, other types of community organizations -- but Clean Air was the first place where my time and my labor felt important, and felt valued. 

In that one brief autumn, I knew I had found the place where I belonged. In the following years, the relationships I formed with the women at Clean Air remained significant parts of my life, offering me opportunities for growth, work that gave me purpose and joy, guidance, hope, love, and snark.

I am so proud to work for an organization that not only relentlessly demands justice, punching above our weight class and winning, over and over again, but that insists we take the time to really know and see each other, to recognize that we are strongest as a collective when we as individuals are cherished, celebrated, and empowered members of a community.

This is holy work, the work of building power and joy and resilience in the face of exploitation and abuse. It is work that takes time, courage (sometimes more than we think we’ve got, until it’s tested), and money.

I’m fundraising for this work for 2020, because I know that the world we are fighting for is possible, and that it isn’t enough to just imagine it (though, what a powerful start!) 

We have to create it as we go, building it through our practices, through the ways we treat each other, through the battles we fight. And we have to fund it.

I’m trying to raise $1,000 this year, to fund the future of this work, and the world we’re building, one day at a time. Through the next 40 days, every dollar you give will be matched, making your support go twice as far. Please join me today in funding Clean Air.

PS: I have my own staff bio on the website now. You can read it here. I still do sometimes.