Become an RtR Board Member

We’re looking for new board members! We’re seeking proactive, justice-minded individuals to educate and empower LO residents with the tools to dismantle racism and make our community a safe, welcome place for all. If you’re unsure of if you’re the right person for the job, just remember we are all experts of our own experience, and we’re stronger with a diversity of tactics, alongside thoughts, abilities, beliefs, and identities. For more information, visit this form!

And if being a board member doesn’t sound like something to best utilize your unique skill-set, expertise, and insight, don’t worry! We’ll be adding other ways to get involved with RtR soon on our new Opportunities page. We’re excited to walk this journey with you, as we need many roles from educators to artists, writers to facilitators on our journey towards total liberation.

If you don’t yet know your role(s) in organizing social change, I would recommend referencing this ecosystem map created by Deepa Iyer and the Building Movement Project!

Gloria Brown Memorial Scholarship announcements forthcoming

RtR's scholarship committee has deliberated and chosen the four finalists for the Gloria Brown Memorial Scholarship. We'll be announcing the scholarship recipients at the respective Lake Oswego and Lakeridge High School awards ceremonies on June 5th and 6th. We can’t wait!

Upcoming June Events 

Respond to Racism is proud to announce we’re sponsoring Pride LO and Juneteenth this next month! We’ll have tables at both events, too, so feel free to stop by and say hi! 

Thanks to folks like you for your continued support of RtR and local events for marginalized people and the Global Majority. As always, if you’re able to, please donate to RtR so we can continue to support these local efforts. 

Tell your friends and bring your families to Pride LO and Juneteenth this June! We are very excited to be part of events, which will include many other local organizations and businesses for food vending, live entertainment, and educational services.

For more information on Pride LO, visit here. 

For more about Lake Oswego's Juneteenth event, visit here. 

Celebration of Life for Bruce R. Poinsette

In light of the recent passing of beloved community member Bruce Reynard Poinsette, an event on Saturday June 1, will take place to encourage the celebration and memorial of his life. The event will take place at Ainsworth United Church of Christ in Portland, at 11am. There will be a livestream available, too.

If you’re able, please also consider sending some mutual aid to the Poinsette family at this time, as medical expenses and funerals are expensive, y’all! Even something as small as a few dollars helps, and there’s nothing like stretching our community-reaching muscles.

Venmo: bruce-poinsette

Insights for your Activism: Operation Olive Branch

For this week, I wanted to put y’all on to an organization founded for the sole reason of redistributing aid to Gazans amid the Israeli and Zionist-inflicted genocide. 

After witnessing nearly 8 months of active onslaught on Palestinian life, and learning more about the 75 years of genocide before us, it can be difficult to begin asking “what can I do?” let alone feeling the hope of actualizing change. Though corporations and politicians leading the charge for progressing Zionist agendas, encouraging our collective nihilism and helplessness, the people will always prevail. Operation Olive Branch was started as a response to outcries by Palestinian creators and families, requesting a more centralized way to connect international folks with Gazan families needing on-the-ground support. According to their FAQ page, it is a volunteer-powered grassroots collective backed by global anti-colonial ideologies “from occupied Turtle Island which include Palestinian activists, the Jewish grandchild of a holocaust survivor, and everyone else in between.”

Since the border to Egypt has closed with the current invasion by the Israeli Government through Rafah crossing, it’s more important now than ever before to get aid immediately into the hands of families. Unlike other organizations like the UNRWA or Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which have more charity-aligned, apolitical goals for broadband “relief” to the Palestinian people (without actually ending Zionist settler colonialism), Operation Olive Branch was started by and for Palestinian refugees, for immediately-felt support. Similarly, I would be remiss to not mention the profound skepticism Palestinians and anti-Zionists have shared on social media of whether aid from international groups like those mentioned will ever actually support people on the ground, especially when the IDF have already blocked those very same aid trucks for months and murdered relief volunteers. 

If you have the financial means, please consider using Operation Olive Branches’ networks to sponsor a family. Similarly, get in contact with them, learn & share their story, and continue to spread awareness for a Free Palestine in conversations with family, friends, colleagues, and loved ones. OOB exists to simply amplify the pre-existing campaigns created and managed by the Palestinian families themselves, so our role as contributors to this global effort is imperative! Currently, campaigns from over 800 families are featured on their organized spreadsheet, with varying immediate needs such as funds for medical aid, food, supplies of living, evacuation fees, or to rebuild their homes.

Operation Olive Branch has expanded their work to include information for creating similar operations, among other ways to support and connect with Gazans through mutual aid, eSIMs, telehealth, and much more. Check out links below for more information!

OOB Resources:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch

Perinatal Project: https://linktr.ee/oobperinatalproject

Their FAQ page with logistics, origins, and ways to volunteer/co-conspire: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hx5X5sYKkoomAMa31KnKbRt0xAzMDSLlr5CUwzbbmvs/edit

Buy them a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/operationolivebranch

Instagram: @operationolivebranch

"No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true hearoes, if they know that knowledge will help set you free." -Assata Shakur

In solidarity, 

cameron