It Takes A Village

A display of how we need to show up for one another.

Every year, I try to use my platform as a tool—not just for speaking, but for doing. For building something larger than myself, something rooted in the work of community and care. Through my platform and my organization, We Have Stories, we’ve raised funds for mutual aid initiatives: back-to-school books and supplies for children, fall and winter holiday giving drives, clothes for women’s shelters during Women’s History Month, and on Juneteenth, direct support for shelters and organizations lifting Black families in need. These efforts aren’t simply about charity; they’re about solidarity, about standing shoulder to shoulder with those who carry the heaviest weight in our society.

Just two weeks ago, that collective energy, your energy, raised over $15,000 to partner with The Boys' Club of New York. Together, we provided food and grocery store gift cards to over 300 families in need. That’s what this work is—lifting, brick by brick, family by family.

So today, I want to pause and give thanks. To all of you who gave, who shared, who believed. To everyone who sees this work not as extraordinary, but as necessary, as the baseline for what it means to call ourselves neighbors, to call ourselves human. This is how we build—by showing up for one another, again and again. Thank you for showing up.

I've said it before, in tones meant to echo through the bone, through the ear, and the marrow of us: the best thing we do as humans, and perhaps the only way forward, is community. Not as a hollow word, but as a living thing—a bond made of shared breath, shared burden, shared hope. Community is what carries us when the ground beneath us crumbles. It is the act of turning an I into a we, of binding ourselves to something larger, something lasting.

As we move into the shadow of a second Trump Administration, community is no longer a philosophy—it is necessity, a pulse we must keep alive. To lift each other is no longer optional, not out of charity but out of sheer survival. To raise one another is an instinct, an understanding that we cannot rise alone. To protect one another is to recognize that love, in this moment, is a kind of shield, and vigilance is its twin.

Community must move now like water, filling the cracks of a fractured world, soft but unyielding. It must move like a song carried from mouth to mouth, even when our voices falter. Community is not just an ideal but the only way forward, the only answer to a time that threatens to hollow us out. It is the past and the future braided together, a reminder that survival has always been found in what we do for each other.

I hope we continue to have your support and love as we move into the winter months for our next mutual aid efforts.

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Speaking of community…

There are few people in this world I hold in as much esteem as Joèl Leon. Tonight will mark our first public, one-on-one conversation—a space where words, stories, and ideas can stretch and breathe. I hope some of you will join us as we delve into the many layers of what’s happening in our world, together.

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