07/21/2024
During our birthdays last month, our dear friends and .chilla put together a GoFund Me with close to $3k of donations from our community to help our family fight back against predatory landlord practices ✊🏽 This gift of support + solidarity from the heart, hit us deep 😭, and carried us through the last 2 months. The helped us gather our focus, organized + learned our rights, connected with tenant advocates + retained a lawyer!
We still have a lot of work to do, and call in our community to get us through the last half of this grassroots fundraising effort. Our family is grinding daily, with the kids even stepping up to help to make the burden lighter.
I’ve also had to really dig deep + find ways to reimagine our future as a family, as leaders of AP, and what it’s going to take to make our endeavors even more sustainable in the future. The blessing of your donations has allowed me the time + space to dream bigger, to connect with like-minded folx cultivating sustainability in their own practices and communities, and to organize + operationalize our collective to one day become a legacy for our children + future generations of cultural community artists to call home.
Some days, I feel impacts of the hustle in my bones, my mind + my heart. But most days I feel grateful for the creativity, the magic, the blessings that happens when we come together. When see my folx living out their purpose + passion, I am reminded: what is more important than that in a world where we have to compromise so much of our soul to survive? When I’m down, my sister tells me, “Jo, you are no quitter 💪🏽”, and with lots of tears shed + big hugs, I am able to release myself from fear + doubts to let in the inspiration + resilience needed to elevate the game. I want to honor Gema, Priscilla, Nikila + Ras, as well as all the homies who’ve come through for us in our time of need. Love yall so much love 💗
For those who feel called to support, I will add the GoFundMe 🔗 on my bio 🫶🏾 Thank you to all who donate from all over the world 🌎 its been truly humbling to receive this kind of support, and we will do our best to make it count! 🫶🏾🎶
