Beloved community, 

At this point, I’m certain you’ve read many words about this current global crisis and how we’re all stretching ourselves into adaptation mode. Words that boast solutions, plead for the world to move slower, bemoan another Zoom call, and desperately seek the possibility of liberation even in a pandemic. 

We are living in an unprecedented, grief-filled reality where our sense of urgency and hope are intertwined with a vast unknown. Yet, Toni’s 51-year-old words remind us that we’ve got time to get right with ourselves, our relationships, and our unique roles. We each have something to contribute to this brewing revolution, and for CASS, survivors who live within the margins are at the center of our universe. 

Here are the roles CASS is fulfilling in this current moment:

Welcoming our new Deputy Director. Kai Hartsfield (they/he) is a young trans non-binary organizer born and raised in Richmond, VA. They bring expertise in fundraising and grant writing, as well as youth organizing and digital communications strategy. Starting May 15th, they will be supporting CASS with managing our operations and administrative work, and leading our fundraising and donor cultivation efforts. Read more about Kai here. 

Prioritizing wellness and community care. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we recognized the immediate need for mutual aid for DC’s most vulnerable residents, and will continue to support efforts to connect marginalized survivors and those seeking crisis support with the DC Mutual Aid Network and Healers for Liberation Network. With survivors bound to their homes through social isolation, conflict, hurt, harm, and abuse is still happening, and in some cases at a higher rate. We’re also witnessing women and LGBTQGNC folks of color in DC’s over-criminalized areas being disproportionately impacted by the current state of policing and hyper-surveillance. Our goal is to take care of our people, and to prioritize healing modalities, self-care and direct giving to people that need it. For instance, the Sex Worker Relief Fund, led by No Justice No Pride and HIPS, is a mutual aid fund we’re supporting that goes directly to DC-area sex workers financially impacted by the crisis. 

Building and sharing resources.  We’ve been recalibrating the focus of our budding transformative justice (TJ) work towards the development of virtual webinars and digital resources that bridge stories, theories, and approaches to gender-based violence through an anti-carceral lens. This includes using relational organizing to cultivate connection between our growing coalition of TJ facilitators and enthusiasts, resourcing healing practitioners to provide services to people experiencing trauma activation, and connecting individuals to resources for survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault. We’re also loving the generation of resources by organizations who share our fight. Check out Irresistible Care Circle for healing vibes, the social media handles of local domestic violence organizations who give direct support to survivors in need, and a practical guide to stop interpersonal violence titled Staying Safe: How Do We Stay Safe? by Creative Interventions. 

Adapting to the inevitable.  We celebrated Anti-Street Harassment Week indoors this year, along with the release of the final report from the historic Street Harassment Prevention Act of 2018. CASS is proud to have been there from the very beginning, from organizing for DC council to push this legislation, to advocating for an intersectional lens on who is reflected in the data on who experiences harassment. You can read the groundbreaking report, The State of Harassment in DC, here. We’re also still fielding requests for workshops and the Safe Bar Collective, however, our training approach has always been deeply rooted in unpacking structural oppressions and how they show up in interpersonal interactions. In order to preserve the integrity of how participants demonstrate and experience vulnerability in those conversations, we will not move our bystander intervention content virtually. We are excited to be able to return to in person training soon, and will schedule them based on an assessment of our collective safety.

Sustaining this work.  We’re going to miss hosting our highly anticipated annual fundraiser, Safe Space Jam, which typically occurs in the late Spring. This is usually when we release our Annual Report, which is still slated to debut this early Summer. In the meantime, last year’s report can be accessed here. We are continuously searching for ways to fundraise while honoring that these are hard economic times for everyone. While we plan to remix our Safe Space Jam to occur in late 2020 or early 2021, we’ll be looking to our community to help resource our work through digital fundraising. On Tuesday, May 5th, we’re teaming up with the Catalogue of Philanthropy again to participate in the Give Local Together #GivingTuesdayNow campaign, where we hope to raise $5,000 to keep powering our projects. Please support our efforts by donating at bit.ly/givetocass and sharing the link with your networks on Tuesday. 

With our collective action on behalf of everyone’s safety, we will see the other side of this pandemic together. Thank you for supporting CASS in fulfilling our role as an organization throughout this tough time. 

Please take care of yourselves ❤️

Je’Kendria