Parents Supporting Parents and the Pandemic
In March of 2020, the city of New York has shut down like many places all around the world due to the pandemic of Covid-19. The virus has brought to light much more than anyone wanted to know even tho many of us already knew. It has shown that capitalism is more important than the lives of everyone especially those of color and low income.
We have gone far too long with cutbacks in education, health care, and anything that serves the general public. We demand better for our families and communities. So we fight back by creating an organization and taking it to the streets.
We as a community we are tired of the unsafe, broken-down systems of schools, health care, and housing. Then adding the Covid-19 on top of everything just made matters worse. The coronavirus did not create the chaos that we have today. But nothing can’t change if it doesn’t start in the education system. Everything we do and are taught starts at home and in schools.
Even at a time like this when we need it the most, we get more budget cuts. Instead of help and more funding, we get threats of not receiving if we don’t open schools. We will not accept silence when it comes to remote or in-person learning, rent forgiveness, unemployment, housing, and food security. Which non of these should be a privilege and one should not be punished by it as well.
As the founder of Parents Supporting Parents a grassroots organization, I know personally too well what all of that means as a Black girl growing up in foster care. But we can’t keep allowing the system to keep working the way it is designed to be against us.
“I didn’t just want a seat at the table for Parents, I wanted to bring my own table”. Tanesha Grant
So I created the space just for that, to tackle all of the issues we face today. So we can be the change that is needed if our elected officials won’t do it. We come together as one voice no matter where we are to help each other by pulling our resources together as a group.
One may even ask how we do the work to help these communities. As a grassroots organization, we do rely on donations to do the work needed to help the families we have dedicated ourselves to. Everything we collect can be in the form of cash but as supplies as well.
With the contribution we accept we help anywhere from assisting in paying someone’s bill when in need, education devices, event and rallies, carfare, and much more. It is offered financial support through funds from you to the families.
A great example is the laptops we donated to three students. We partner with the family of Eric Garner to honor the work he has done before being killed by the police. It was an amazing event with many people and the food being served. Even with speeches by his beautiful daughters left without a wonderful father to see grow up now.
On top of all of that, we also check in with all of the parents in emotional support once a week called Parent Talk. Since we have started we haven’t missed a weekly session. So come and join us in our Zoom call this Tuesday at 7 pm. You can RSVP HERE and we will see you soon!