An EPIC Start to 2021

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A nonprofit fundraiser supporting

York XL
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$125

raised by 2 people

$5,000 goal

This has been a time of global upheaval. Many forces converged to address the disruptions caused by the pandemic, and rightly so. But our message has been consistent  - the people in chronically poor urban neighborhoods, made up of predominantly black and brown people, have been dealing with these disruptions and traumas not just for individual lives, but through the centuries. 


We need these same forces to come together FOR THEM. That's why we need your support!

Our CEO contracted covid just before Christmas. He’s recovering but he notes his luck: 

  • His wife, with lesser symptoms, continued to work Sure, he was out for the count, but YORK XL has been volunteer-run for its existence!

  • Her health insurance allowed him to see his doctor easily, get tested for covid, receive antibiotics, and a chest x-ray without spending a dime.

  • Getting around was as easy as getting into a car.

  • Friends/fam checked in daily. Some dropped off meals, treats, and gift cards.

  • Covid payments/deferrals covered mortgage and student loan payments (which won’t accrue but rather added to the end of the loans)


Support systems. That’s the difference between the empowered and the disempowered. It’s that simple. 


A single mother with kids, with no health insurance, and no car doesn’t have the same opportunities we do to get through COVID. Of course, there is always personal accountability.

But by and large our neighborhoods are working as designed. They have been devalued and their assets appropriated

  1. by landlords that take rent but rarely put value back in; 

  2. by developers who make trickle-down promises but rarely deliver, leaving the neighborhoods to pay the opportunity cost of expensive projects. 

  3. By local and national policies such  restrictive redlining, and restrictive zoning that has created ghettos of concentrated poverty. 


BY DESIGN. 

It’s a harsh thing to say and I’m sure it’s a hard thing to believe. 


That’s the message we will continue to broadcast. 

We want people to understand why our neighborhoods are the way they are. We believe you have to believe the worst of humanity if you think of all the ills that we associate with our black and brown neighborhoods are “because that’s how they like to live”, or because “they are just too lazy and want to keep getting free government money and services.” We know that is not the case. For sure, even when you want to get a higher paying job and do better, many can’t because even a meager increase in income will lead to even greater loss of food, medical, and other benefits! 


That is the work that your prior support to York XL has allowed us to continue working in - building platforms. Platforms that will allow people to use the skills and talents they already have to work towards their own empowerment. 


This is the York XL difference. 


We’ve outlined the problems with the SYSTEM. We haven’t said our neighborhood residents are incomplete. That they need us to solve their problems. Inner city residents AREN’T looking for a savior: they want to be able to work towards a happy life WITHOUT the barriers that have been created for them. And if they ARE wanting of somethings - they are wanting of being heard. Of deserving of dignity. Dignity of work. Dignity of home. Dignity of being able to pursue their passions and dreams.


We don’t believe that is a terribly selfish thing to want. It is what we all want.


The solutions are not simple, that’s for sure. But here’s the thing, they’re not for us to determine either. We aren’t saviors, and that’s not our calling. Solutions will come by working together IN SERVICE to the priorities and needs of our neighborhood residents. 

It starts with this: those of us who have benefitted from the current system (some of us despite the system) have done so at the expense of those from whom those privileges have been purposely denied - home ownership, equal education, unbiased employment opportunities. 


As you finish out this traumatic year, I’m asking you to do some soul searching. Consider all of the supports and systems that you relied on to get through. How much of it did you build yourself? How many of them were easy for you because of the family you were born into? How many of them may not have been open to you if you had committed the original sin of being born with darker skin? 


These are the kinds of questions York XL has been attacking head on for the last three years. Our response is our EPIC Neighborhood Strategy that works with neighborhoods to create a vision for themselves based on their passions and interests, and then brings together as many organizations to work in service to plan under the banner of the EPIC Collaborative.


Your monetary donation will allow us to keep doing what we’ve been doing for years as an all volunteer organization.

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