Dear Friends,

Happy Spring! I am writing as we launch our Spring Appeal 2022. I hope you will consider supporting Class Action’s work for the coming year! Click here to donate.

In 2022, we’ve been working to educate about class, build bridges across class, and bring the intersection of race and class more fully into everything we do. I would like to lift up two of our initiatives in particular to highlight for you:

Class Action’s Trainers’ Summit (TS II) 

In Oct., 2021, Class Action convened a group of 20 racial justice and anti-classism trainers and facilitators to develop and refine methodologies for bringing both racial justice and class equity into our practices in deep and intersectional ways. It was a rich and productive dialogue which led to a second series of four meetings in the last few months. In these latest sessions, participants have explored their own experiences of race/class intersections through meetings in affinity groups – first according to racial identity and then according to class identity. We are now beginning the process of identifying what we have learned and ways of translating those learnings into our practice.

The exploration of this gifted and open-hearted group of practitioners has been an important growing experience for us all. We feel that we are breaking new ground and discovering important approaches to equity work. We look forward to sharing key lessons from this process with the entire Class Action community.

CA’s First Gen Leadership Development Initiative (FGLDI)

This November 4-7, 2022, Class Action will host its 10th Anniversary First Gen Summit! The Summit was one of the first spaces nationwide for cross-campus relationship building and learning among students who are the first in their families to attend college. In the past several months, Class Action has been piloting a new initiative that offers opportunities for First Gen students and recent alumni to be involved in Class Action’s educational work.

Beginning in February, we recruited two First Gen students to be our inaugural FGLDI team members. Working with Adj Marshall (CA’s long term Summit Coordinator) and ED Ann Philbin, Misa Beltran-Guzman (Colby, ‘22) and Jessica Angeles (Tufts, ‘21) are helping to lead workshops about class, class identity, and what it means to be First Gen for a range of educational institutions. This coming year, Class Action will grow the FGLDI with the advice and leadership of the people it is designed to support – First Gen students and recent alumni. We are grateful to have a long history with this constituency of young people, and we are committed to furthering and deepening our partnership.

These two areas of CA’s work epitomize our commitment to collaborative, partnership-based efforts that use human experience and the space to share stories to help foster connection, relationship, and understanding as core components of transformational “work across difference.” I am full of gratitude for the people who have contributed to our work by sharing themselves deeply and openly and agreeing to stay together on the “learning edge” of this journey.

We view all of our donors and supporters as partners and co-creators of our work. We hope you will join our family of donors with a contribution to our Spring Appeal. Your gift will make Class Action’s next year of work possible! Click here to donate.

With gratitude,