Change can happen in the group chat

“Rebel leadership just means you take responsibility and perhaps it means interrupting the thing that’s just not working, and that’s really, really hard. It’s a muscle, and if you can get brave in the group chat or if you can get brave at the dinner table, then maybe you can get brave later when [the situation is more complex or difficult].”

— Sara Gray

My conversation with one of my dearest friends of 20+ years, Sara Gray, Senior Director of Communications and Marketing at the National Equity Project (NEP), has been on my mind since we first talked in early January. This is my last of three posts summarizing our conversation around equity that I want to share with all of you.

Before you read this last post, I have four asks of you:

1. This post is Part 3 of my series of blog posts summarizing my conversation with Sara. To immerse yourself in the work of equity that Sara presents to us, I highly recommend reading my previous posts before diving into this one: 

   1. Part I: Framing Cultural Words as Actionable Pursuits

   2. Part II: Get What You Need When You Need It

2. Please consider listening to my full conversation with Sara on my personal Instagram account. Sara provides so much additional texture that I didn’t capture in my blogs, and together they provide a solid immersion into what it’s like to challenge ourselves and to open our thoughts to new ways of thinking in our equity journey.

3. This conversation is part of my birthday equity walk, which is why, although the equity walk is to support FRN, I chose to have the conversations on my personal Instagram. Learn more about my birthday equity walk by reading this blog post, and please do consider participating.

4. Become familiar with the National Equity Project. I am hopeful to host Sara for a part II of our conversation on Food Recovery Network’s platform later this year.

Below is the last set of resources and thoughts that Sara shared with all of us as part of my birthday equity walk. If it’s in your budget to do so, please consider becoming a recurring monthly donor, or making a one-time donation.

“We all have the power to influence and we need to step up.”

If there is ever doubt that the system isn’t working for us, I offer two data points. First, from a Food Recovery Network perspective, 42 million people are food insecure right now. And second, we know that 42 million people are not consistently making the wrong life choices, or don’t want to work as many of the myths around why people are poor will try to tell us. Forty-two million people not having consistent access to the food they deserve is designed into the system; it ensures some people will go hungry. 

When I asked Sara how we can redesign a system that is not working for far too many of us, she didn’t bat an eye at such a large question. Sara started by interrogating the scarcity mindset that we have all been inundated with, which tries to convince us that it’s okay that so many people are hungry, or that this level of hunger is normal. I believe that when we even begin to normalize millions of people being hungry, then the system is not working for all of us. Sara noted that even if the system is benefiting us right now, we still have to interrogate that system because it comes with a harmful cost for others. 

The activation part within all of this is that we can change the system. This is where we can activate our sphere of influence. I want to quote Sara in her entirety when she reminds us, “There is the collective effort and the individual effort. You have to be grounded as an individual, even if your life is chaos. Even if the systems have made your life chaos. You can remind yourself that ease is a birthright, abundance is our birthright, this earth is our birthright. If you remind yourself of that, then when you get into the systems and when you get into the spaces where you have influence, and we all have our own spheres of influence, [with] your family, in your organization, in your city…then you step up to actually see the thing that you can change; you actually have to try to change it.”

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” — Harriet Tubman

“What I love about bell hooks’ whole work, is that these systems have harmed us all. Even if on the surface it looks like you’re benefiting from them. You may be winning at the system, and you’re harmed by it. You’ve lost something in that. And that’s a baseline understanding. And I don’t think people have necessarily unpacked that if you think you’re at the top of the pyramid and you’re trying to kick people off.”

— Sara Gray

Everyone deserves an easeful life: Resources Part II

Throughout our flowing conversation, Sara and I mentioned many places we look to in our equity journey. Equity is a practice. By reading the thoughts of others who write about equity, love, systems change, hope, and design, we practice equity.

• Sara mentioned Harriet Tubman and the concept of “freedom dreaming.” To learn more about freedom dreaming, Sara recommended getting to know her amazing coworker, Brittnee Meitzenheimer, Program and Operations Manager for the Center for Equity Leadership at NEP, and reading Brittnee’s blog post about Freedom Dreaming. The concept of Freedom Dreaming that Brittnee summons is the feeling of ease that I write about in the second blog post in this series, “Get what you need when you need it.”

• My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts by Resmaa Menakem

•  “Breaking Boundaries”,  as described by Netflix, follows David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockström as they examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.

• Tricia Hershey is the creator of The Nap Ministry and discusses rest as a critical act of resistance. We’ve talked a lot about this at Food Recovery Network. My birthday equity walk aims to attract more recurring monthly donors to cover part of the expense for employer paid health insurance to our staff. Accessing medical care when employees need it that is low or zero cost is part of FRN’s equity walk, and so is being able to take time off when under the weather or when we need a break. 

• Poor People’s Campaign is one of FRN’s partners. Check out my conversation with Shailly Barnes, Policy Director for Poor People’s Campaign, to learn more about how we can all invest in communities to support them. This conversation was part of my webinar series, Intersectionalities in Practice, another place you can learn more about FRN’s equity walk and our work.

• Sara and I brought up author Octavia Butler when discussing how we can redesign a world that works for everyone, a world of abundance for everyone and where we don’t fear that we won’t have what we need. Octavia Butler said, “there is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.”

Action steps suggested by Sara

• Notice when you experience a dissonance with a “regular system” change. Sara provided this example: Youth participants in NEP programs listed some changes they wanted to see in their lives. Sara was astonished to hear their rationale for their list because it truly bucked a lot of what we think young people will do when they are “left to their own devices.” The NEP youth said they want to be the ones to ask for homework when they feel they need the additional support in learning that homework can provide, and to move away from an automatic assignment of homework. When asked what they wanted to do instead, they said they want to continue to learn to code, or work in their garden, or talk together with their peers about the world. They were advocating for a release of their time, to reclaim that time, and for adults to trust them.

  • Here is a link to listen to two NEP Youth Advocates on the 180 Podcast - Student Voices: Fighting for an Inclusive System.

• Start a gratitude practice. It can be super small, something like naming one thing that you’re grateful for and taking a moment to talk about it at dinner.

• Follow and be led by Black women, support them, be friends with them, “it will change your life.”

Again, thank you for taking time to read and learn about my birthday equity walk. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Love health and gratitude,

Regina

Get What You Need When You Need It

“How do you reimagine the whole thing? It’s the individual and the collective efforts. You have to be grounded as an individual, even if your life is chaos. Even if the systems have made your life chaos. You can remind yourself that ease is a birthright, abundance is a birthright, this earth is a birthright.”

— Sara Gray

Framing my previous post on cultural words

In my last blog post, I shared how I approach the concept of equity and other big “cultural words” like leadership, compassion, and investment as a continuum of conversation, thought, and action. I wanted to offer this context before sharing more from my amazing conversation about equity with one of my dearest friends of 20+ years, Sara Gray, Senior Director of Communications and Marketing at the National Equity Project (NEP). 

My conversation with Sara is part of my birthday equity walk, and you can learn more about my equity walk and how you can participate by reading this blog post. Sara and I discussed the cultural word equity and the many ways that this word translates into action, thought and pursuits both at her organization and as a person practicing equity. You do not have to have listened to the conversation, which you can find on my personal Instagram account, to continue reading and learning. I do recommend reading the first post in this series to help ground my thoughts and takeaways here.

Below is the first round of thoughts and resources from my conversation with Sara.

Sara and I have been friends for over 20 years, 17 of which Sara has spent at the National Equity Project.

Defining equity provides a baseline for our practice of equity

For any of us who feel like the term equity is so big and nuanced to even attempt to articulate, the National Equity Project, where Sara Gray has spent the last 17 years of her career, offers up a definition to ground us. Their definition establishes a common baseline to begin to build our equity practice, or to bring into our practice should we already be on the journey. A baseline allows us to cross-check our actions, our thoughts, and our work, and though the practice of equity is not linear in motion, the baseline definition provides a reference point to check our progress.

The National Equity Project defines educational equity as "every child receives what they need to develop to their full academic and social potential." Sara expanded this notion of equity more broadly and it is this definition that we came back to throughout our conversation: equity is the ability to get what you need when you need it.

I invite you to pause and think about this statement with me for a moment. How do you feel reading this definition? What comes to your mind at first glance? What questions do you have? Where do you agree or disagree with this definition and why? I encourage you to give plenty of space to consider this definition as you read through this post.

Who advocates for what we need when we are young?

Sara noted that within this definition, the concept of getting what you need when you need it plays around in her mind a lot, especially as the mother to two young and incredible children. Sara asked us all to look back at when we were very young: how did someone even know that we needed something? In order for someone to know that we need anything at all in the first place, Sara emphasized that “you have to be known, you have to be cared for in order for someone to know you are NOT getting what you need in this world.”

Sara reflected on her opportunity to participate in the Gifted and Talented program throughout her public school education. The Gifted and Talented program drew from a place of excellence that should be the standard for everyone. Imagine if we all pulled whatever resources it took for excellence to be the standard for every single child. Sara spoke about how all students deserve to have their interests encouraged and cultivated the way her’s were as a child. At the same time, Sara reminded us that parents who want their children to have this kind of education are fighting for that, but the system we’ve designed allows for their needs to stay unmet because of their zip code.

Much like we took a moment to pause to consider the definition of equity, I would like us all to take a collective moment to take note of our first reactions when we bring up the notion that all children deserve excellence in their educational experience as a practice in and articulation of equity. How do you feel?

For me, when I think about educational excellence as a standard, I return to the definition of love by M. Scott Peck as noted by bell hooks in their 2001 book All About Love: love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth. Love is an act of will — namely both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” When we meet the requests of all the parents whose children are not receiving the kind of educational experience they deserve and that they are asking for, then we are all in love, and we are choosing love. We are ensuring we all get what we need when we need it.

I encourage everyone to become familiar with the National Equity Project (NEP). There are resources and tools for everyone, including tools to support the healing process of adults. NEP provides tools for us to learn to take a breath, and to examine our own systems so that we can see what is causing harm, even if that harm might be benign. We all deserve the space to examine our harm if for no other reason so that we do not keep incorporating it into how we are present or our future.

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Resources Part I

Throughout our flowing conversation, Sara and I mentioned many books that we turn to in our practice of equity. By learning from others who write about equity, love, systems change, hope, and design, we practice equity. Of the resources listed below, which have you heard of before? Did any of these resources make it onto your reading or “to research” list?

• All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks

• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity & Love by bell hooks

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer 

  • This book is on my home library shelf, but I have yet to read this. Sara noted this book is about re-indigenizing our land. If the concept of re-indigenizing our land is new to you, or if you are interested in learning more, this is a great opportunity to subscribe to podcasts, newsletters and profiles created by our indignenous communities. I always suggest The Red Nation as a starting point.

  • Sara noted that in Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer stresses that capitalism works best within a scarcity mindset. We live within a normalized mindset that teaches us to fear that there is not enough for everyone, regardless of whether there is actually enough or not. When we act from a place of fear to get what we believe we deserve, how does that shape our thoughts? How does that shape our actions? From another perspective, when we begin to understand there is more than enough and then some for everyone, we can let go of that scarcity mindset.

  • In her practice to challenge the scarcity mindset, Sara reminds herself and her socioeconomic peers: you will have what you need, but it might mean you don’t have exactly everything you had before when we begin to think and act from a place of abundance. When beginning to practice the mindset that you will and do have everything you need, at first it might feel like something is being taken away from us as we reset. An abundance mindset means things cannot be exactly as they were before, and we probably really liked what we had before. We’ve been taught to act against anything being taken away from us. The practice of the abundance mindset asks us to really slow down and challenge ourselves to ask, is there something that is truly being taken away from me, or is this just different? There could be something that you like that just isn't good for the earth, or isn’t good for others around you. Sara encourages us to slow down and interrogate these things.

• Sonya Renee Taylor is the Founder and Radical Executive Officer of The Body is Not An Apology and an award-winning poet, activist, author and leader. Sonya reminds us that “normal never was”. When we think about coming out on the other side of the pandemic, what does that look like? The racial unrest that so many of us have felt our whole lives, or the status quo that was harmful, never felt normal to us, but to the “dominant caste,” as Isabel Wilkerson notes, it felt quite normal. As we decide what “normal” looks like, we have an opportunity to include more voices and perspectives to center those our system design has harmed and ignored.

• Nikole Hannah Jones is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and recently filled the newly created Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University. In any equity journey, I believe that becoming familiar with the work of Nikole Hannah Jones is critical. In her own words on her website, Jones says, "I see my work as forcing us to confront our hypocrisy, forcing us to confront the truth that we would rather ignore.”

• Paid Leave for All is a national nonprofit that is fighting to ensure that all of us can take time off from work when we need to take care of ourselves, our children, our parents or others we are responsible for without fear of losing wages. Personally, for years I worked shift positions and had low-paying work, and taking time off for being under the weather seemed like a luxury. The struggle, stress, and hardship lived each day by anyone who has to go to work or face zero dollars in their wallet is real. I can attest to that, and it brings me back to our definition of equity that I want to be a reality for everyone: may you get what you need, when you need it.

I hope you found this first set of resources thought-provoking, helpful, and maybe even a little challenging. I am inspired by Sara who challenges her own thoughts about system designs and does the work to consider how we can truly shift to an abundance mindset.

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I have one more blog post planned that will wrap up my conversation with Sara. In the meantime, a reminder that this set of content is a complement to my Birthday Equity Walk. The purpose of this content is to share more about equity and I want to tie that back directly to Food Recovery Network. My goal is to activate enough monthly donors to get to $1,000 / month in recurring donations, which will help underwrite part of FRN’s employer-paid health insurance costs. You can learn more about my Birthday Equity Walk by reading my LinkedIn article.

With love,

Regina

PS. I want to leave everyone with the imagery that Sara discussed within the concept of Freedom Dreaming (my next blog post will share more). Sara brought into the conversation the work of her incredible colleague at NEP, Brittnee Meitzenheimer, and recommended reading a blog post Brittnee wrote on the topic of Freedom Dreaming. Brittnee’s thoughts led Sara to share the following: “A world full of ease, a world full of easeful things. And you know what easeful is because you know when you feel it, and you know when you don’t feel it. Everyone deserves an easeful life- not an easy life, but we deserve a system that allows things to function with ease.”

Food Recovery Network's solutions to feeding those in need includes food recovery AND systems change

As part of our systems change work, Food Recovery Network advocates for policies that will support the economic security of the 42 million people who are currently food insecure. We also understand that the underlying causes that enforce such vast economic disparities affect our student leaders, who lead the charge to recover food in their communities and support their neighbors. FRN’s strategic framework guides our method for FRN to contribute our unique offerings to fight for the intertwined economic and food security of these 42 million people. 

Two years ago, we publicly announced our strategic framework, FRN10X, to help us achieve our goal to recover surplus food to feed everyone who is hungry in the US. Within this framework, FRN continues the foundational work our student leaders, alumni, and dedicated stakeholders have done since our founding in 2011: recovering surplus precious food and donating it to those who are food insecure and hungry. This is our bedrock work and reflects our deep commitment to ensuring that all people, including current higher education students, have access to the food that they deserve. We know that we’re successful in accomplishing our bedrock work when we’re contributing to the reduction of the 26 million tons of surplus food produced annually in the commercial and institutional sectors - think food from farm fields, grocery stores, corporate dining halls, and higher education dining halls.

While we continue our bedrock work, through our newly focused systems change work FRN is working to reduce the number of people in the US who are food insecure to zero. We’ll know that we’re successfully contributing to this work when the 42 million people who are currently food insecure achieve economic security. When people are economically secure, they can obtain the basic necessities to live like food, shelter, healthcare, and education. To reduce the number of people who are food insecure, FRN engages in strategies outside of recovering surplus food. We’re focusing on these efforts because we know that access to food, while a basic human right that we continue to fight for, does not necessarily support a person’s overall economic security.

FRN is engaging in systems change work because of the potential to directly impact our student leaders and alumni today and in the future. Our systems change work involves interrogating our existing systems for elements rooted in racism, inequality, sexism and other structures that build into the system the very disparities we are constantly trying to solve for at FRN. I have said it a thousand times: 42 million people are not food insecure because they have simply consistently made bad decisions with their money or their lives. The myth that people are struggling or are poor because of their own moral failing or unwillingness to work hard has been told for as long as the US has existed and it is so old, many of us don’t even consider the myth’s origins. Many of us also believe that myth, especially when we believe we have seen examples that justify it.

Forty-two million people are food insecure because their wages have been suppressed, because many of us carry medical debt due to lack of adequate and affordable health insurance, because of lack of access to actual healthcare, and because for many, the leap to advancement to obtain better paying jobs through higher education has saddled us with crippling student debt. And we see time and again that people of color are disproportionately affected by these factors.

Two areas of our systems change work that are part of the path to fighting for economic security, and that specifically affect our student leaders, are an increased minimum wage and the examination of affordable higher education. When students graduate, they can carry student debt that stays with them and their families for generations. While pursuing their degrees, students also work hourly wage jobs, and after graduating often take jobs that pay by the hour. The current federal minimum wage is low enough that it contributes significantly to the economic insecurity of our students.

As we dive deeper into our systems change work, we will continue to have conversations about our work and approach and invite you all to be in conversation with us. We’ll also continue to highlight our powerful partners who are working to ensure the economic security of those who are food insecure and will put forward actionable steps for all of us to take to redesign a system that supports all of us.

Resources to learn more about our systems change work

• Read my recent blog post where I talk more about FRN’s commitment to the fight for $15 campaign. FRN is committed to supporting an increase in the federal minimum wage because our students work in jobs that pay hourly rates and will graduate and enter into a workforce that also offers a suppressed hourly rate. The current minimum wage is a system that prevents so many from achieving economic and food security.

• The image below is our Results Count Framework, FRN10X. To learn more about this framework and how we use it, go to Roundtable Talks to watch any of the public conversations we’ve had about FRN10X. If you have questions about the framework, please be in touch directly with us, and look out for our next Roundtable Talk in late summer 2022.

Framing Cultural Words as Actionable Pursuits

When we are talking about equity, it can be fun, it can be with love and “it has to be [done with all of these things], otherwise, it’s not.” — Sara Gray

I love to talk about words that encompass big cultural pursuits. Words like compassion, leadership, investment. These are words that deserve deep consideration, conversation, and activation to fully understand the pursuits they stand in for. We also need to consider their context in the past, present and future, because when you “freeze frame”, as I like to say, on any one moment, chances are high that you’ll miss their full texture and meaning.   

Recently I created an entire campaign around another “big” word, equity. I wanted to spend time exploring the word equity and how its meaning encompasses the pursuit of equity. What does equity look like, and what does it sound like? How do we do equity? Can partial equity be achieved, and can equity exist in the presence of inequitable activities? The list of questions goes on and on, and this campaign was an opportunity to dive into these questions and to build my own practice of equity.

To further my practice, in early January I spoke with Sara Gray, Senior Director of Communications and Marketing at the National Equity Project, on Instagram Live. For the past 17 years Sara has worked at a national nonprofit whose mission is to support systemic change to increase the capacity of people to achieve thriving, self-determining, educated, and just communities. It felt like a great practice point to dig into the term equity - as a verb, a noun, a practice, a state of being - with Sara.

It’s an understatement to say Sara dropped an immense amount of knowledge for us all during the conversation. I was so touched by the conversation because of the deep thinking and care present that is so clearly habitual to Sara. I was moved to seek out the resources Sara mentioned as part of my own continuous learning, and I went back through the conversation to list the resources for all of us. I’ll share these in my next blog post, and I hope these spark inspiration and action for you as it did for me.

Before you read the next post with our resources, I have FOUR asks of you:

1. Share with me what struck you about my conversation with Sara. You can find the recording here on my personal IG!

2. Consider becoming a recurring monthly donor to Food Recovery Network. The conversation with Sara is part of a series of conversations I’m hosting about equity to underscore my pursuit to activate enough monthly donors for FRN to reach $1,000 per month in recurring donations. This would be used to help underwrite a portion of FRN’s employer paid health insurance costs. You can learn more about my Birthday Equity Walk by reading my linkedin article.

3. Become familiar with the National Equity Project. I am hopeful to have a second conversation with Sara on FRN’s platform later this year.

4. At the start of this post I wondered, how do we talk about words that represent big cultural pursuits? How do you talk about these words? How do you make these words into actionable pursuits? I think about this work of activation as a practice, and one way to talk about these big cultural words is, with and in love, to just start.

I would like to end with the definition of love that I read in bell hooks’ 2001 book All About Love, taken from M. Scott Peck: love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth. Love is an act of will—namely both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

With love,

Regina