Dear Friends,
As we wrap up and reflect on 2019, we wanted to take time to thank you. 2019 has been quite a year. Our communities continue to face state violence, deportations, race, gender and sexuality based violence and discrimination, housing insecurity, and environmental destruction, all while we hustle to take care of ourselves, our families, and our communities. There were many days where we felt terror, fear, and despair, when we didn't know what to do, how to heal, how to make things better. And despite this, we kept going. Because YOU kept going, It's our friends, our supporters, our children, and our community heroes that push us to take our next step forward.
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Speaker Pelosi, we are the youth! Green New Deal, we demand the truth!
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Week after week, we showed up at the Greenpeace Warehouse, at Manzanita SEED and Community Elementary Schools, at Abundant Beginnings Forest Freedom School, and at Urban Promise Academy Middle School. BoomShake members organized themselves to show up in the rain and cold to support striking Mariott workers, Oakland teachers, and renters facing eviction in Concord. We brought our funky beats to picket lines and parades, and our voices and rhythms to community organizations fighting for justice like California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance and Viet Unity. And in December, we finished our year long meditation on water with our 5th annual drumsical, Agua Pa' the People, which brought together 115 participants, aged 1-62, nine artists of color, and packed houses of multigenerational, multicultural audiences.
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You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am, I'll come running, to see you again
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We couldn't have done this without you. BoomShake is a grassroots organization with a bare bones staff and a small budget, and it's your donations that make our work possible. Because of you, we were able to provide
- 195 free drumming classes to Black and Brown Oakland youth at 4 schools
- 3 workshops at Girls Rock Camp
- 75 sessions of adult workshops to 60 women, trans and gender nonconforming folk, with 48 of them paying $0 or a reduced cost
- 16 workshops with community groups working for justice
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The teachers united, will never be defeated! Les maestres unidos, jamas serán vencidos!
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Because of your donations to BoomShake's Agua Pa' the People fundraiser, either online or at the shows, we've raised $4545 towards our goal of $6000, which enables us to pay our teaching artists and collaborating artists of color a living wage, as well as provide free and sliding scale workshops to drumsical participants in the fall.
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Gather all our elders, que mi plena va sonar; Nourishing our children, que mi plena va sonar
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However you participated this year, whether by making a monetary donation, or donating your time, talent or love and support, WE THANK YOU. We need our whole community in order to do this healing work, and we're grateful to count you as part of that community.
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We are the children, the mighty mighty children, fighting for justice, for me and my family
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If you haven't had a chance to donate yet, you can still do so online here. Your donations are tax- deductible, so get 'em in before December 31 to count them on your 2019 taxes.
Lots of love,
Team BoomShake
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