Dear ones,
One of my winter activities has been reading an excellent biography of Emily Dickinson and getting to know her work a bit. I borrowed another book from the library called Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings, which includes lovely and astonishing poems, written on torn-off envelope flaps and other small pieces of paper. I fancy myself connected to Emily by my love of writing on scraps, although my scribblings are truly mundane.
In this short Life/that only lasts an hour/How much - how/little - is/within our/power
This one really spoke to me. At a time in my life when I am not doing much teaching, it is easy to feel that I am not doing much (which is how, dear reader, I ended up writing to you). A group of us restless work-from-homers teamed up with some amazing folks from Kensington Windsor Terrace Mutual Aid to launch another free fridge in Brooklyn. The concept behind mutual aid is simple: we help each other. It was more complicated than we expected to find a site for the fridge, but on Sunday, we finally moved it, filled it, and plugged it in on East 2nd Street near Fort Hamilton Parkway outside the law office of Ezra Glaser. Here are two ways that you can support the KWTfridge:
Donate to KWTMA to pay for food to stock the fridge. Indicate that the donation is for the fridge.
Follow us on Instagram @KWTfridge
If you are interested in some more hands-on involvement to check on, clean, and/or stock the fridge, please email us at kwtfridge@gmail.com.
When the pandemic simultaneously put people out of work and closed publicly funded day care, many people also found themselves unable to pay for diapers (which are sometimes provided for free in daycare facilities). As if caring for a baby in a pandemic weren’t hard enough! More and more people have turned to diaper banks (like food banks, but for diapers).
In 2020, the National Diaper Bank Network distributed more than 100 million diapers to 220 diaper banks across the country, a 67 percent spike year-over-year. Most public aid programs don’t cover diapers, which run about $80 a month per child.
Here’s another little something in our power to do.
Donate to Help a Mother Out, an organization that distributes diapers to families and advocates for a social safety net that addresses diaper need.
Contact Senator Chuck Schumer and urge him to bring the bill to provide diaper assistance to the floor as soon as possible. Here’s a ready-made message.
Last week, I wrote about a real estate development planned near Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which would require a zoning change. That same development lays within the boundaries of a so-called Opportunity Zone. The location in an Opportunity Zone triggers a giant tax break for real estate developers because of 2017 federal legislation, which was touted and signed by the former president and real estate developer-in-chief (I’m awaiting evidence before I call him a tax cheat). In 2018, the states designated Opportunity Zones. State Senator Zellnor Myrie notes:
Herein lies the problem with Opportunity Zone giveaways — developers see a financial opportunity that purports to benefit the immediate community, even when that community is in staunch opposition to that development.
Senator Michael Gianaris recently introduced legislation, co-sponsored by Senator Myrie, to end the giveaway to developers and prevent losses of state tax revenue. A coalition of unions and advocacy groups are urging support of the bill,
argu[ing] that the state's opportunity zone program results in hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for real estate developers.
Contact your NYS Senator to ask them to support S1195 to end the tax breaks to developers. Here’s a ready-made email!
Thanks for taking action today.
with love,
L