Hell Yeah, Y'all Did That
We raised $25,000 for families and I'm running for Gaza.
There are days when the news feels like an avalanche, when every headline is another confirmation that cruelty has become casual, and that caring is almost countercultural. And yet, this week, I have something else for you. I have care, real care, the type of care that persists in the cracks. I have reminders that we are still finding ways to gather ourselves, to organize, to move toward light, even as everything around it seems bent on despair.
Because the real work of this time is not just to resist destruction, but to insist on gentleness, on community, on giving people something they can hold on to.
$25,000 in Grocery Gift Cards for Families
First, let me lead with some exciting news and a thank you. Together, our community raised $25,000 in mutual aid through my non-profit We Have Stories, to distribute $100 grocery gift certificates to the families of every student at the Harlem Link elementary school.
I want to linger on that number because it represents not just money, but an entire ecosystem of human decency.
It means refrigerators filling up again. It means a parent opening a cabinet and feeling something other than panic. It means someone, somewhere, breathing easier for one evening.
This is what it looks like when people decide to keep each other afloat. Not through theory or slogans, but through action. I cannot tell you how proud I am of what we did together, or how much I believe this is the kind of quiet revolution that keeps the world from unraveling completely. Below are photos from me meeting some of the students.
$4,000 Raised For the Gaza 5k (and you can run with me)
This week also brought something that lives in the space between exhaustion and hope. I reached my fundraising goal of $3,000 for the Gaza 5K (approaching $4k), an effort by UNRWA USA that I’m proud to be collaborating on. The run will take place in Prospect Park this Sunday, October 12, and it has become, for me, a meditation on what it means to keep showing up for people you may never meet.
The Gaza 5K raises funds for mental health services for families who have lived through displacement, grief, and a kind of daily uncertainty that most of us can only imagine. The act of running feels almost small against all that suffering, but it is a way for us to move through the world with purpose.
If you are in New York, you can still join me in the run, and if you are not, you can donate or share the effort.
Click the video below to see the Instagram post.
Thank you.
There is a kind of holiness in small coordination. One person gives a little, another shares a post, another registers for a run, another hands over a gift card, and somehow, through all these invisible threads, something solid forms.
That is what this week felt like. A reminder that the most important work we can do is to make sure each other makes it through.
Thank you for being part of that work. Thank you for refusing the cynicism that says nothing can change.
With love and faith in the ongoing experiment of goodness,
Fred
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Love this. You’re an inspiration.
“…care that persists in the cracks.” 🙌 Thank you for this much needed good news ❤️🩹