Strengthening our Circle of Support

In these unprecedented  times, we at APIsRISE Fund hope that all of you have found a circle of support among family and loved ones, friends, neighbors and colleagues. We started our monthly meeting via Zoom this past Monday by sharing both sorrow and laughter and the many ways that we are working to stay safe and healthy and take care of one another.  We paid tribute to frontline health workers and responders,  particularly  those from the API community represented in high numbers in these fields.  Not only are they putting their lives and health on the line to do their critical work, but like too many in our communities, risk COVID-19 related xenophobia, racial hatred, and racial violence for simply walking down the street to their jobs or to the store to get essential food and medicine. 

We channeled our outrage at the surge in these incidents by standing with the Asian American/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy’s Open Letter to Philanthropy: The Cure to Viral Racism Is Within Our Hands  which calls on all of us to speak out and denounce racism and prejudice against any individual or community when we see it and to “think of this moment as a “reset” button to imagine a more holistic approach to philanthropy that gains new traction toward racial and gender equity.” 

In this spirit, we lift up the vital census education and advocacy work of APIsRISE grantees Iu-Mien Community Services and ACC Senior Services and important community engagement and empowerment work of our past grantees because the COVID-19 pandemic has only underscored the racial and ethnic health disparities in our communities and country and the importance of ensuring that everyone is counted and heard. 

We send you our deepest appreciation for your continued support and pledge our commitment  to stay with you in community through and beyond the crisis.

Mona Tawatao, Co-Chair