A little less than four years ago, @mostlybree.kitrocha.com said "what if we do an auction for the Georgia runoff?" and she and I batted the idea back and forth and picked a name and got a domain name and I woke up the next day and made a logo and got emails and a twitter account.
By the end of the day we'd smashed our total funding goal. By the end of the auction, we'd raised close to $500,000 dollars, and we keep coming back to it every two years because it raises money and it brings people together.
We have never been alone: one of Bree's big selling points was "I know a bunch of people on the Discord who are willing to help," and boy were they ever. We knew romance would pitch in with items and spreading the word.
It's been a team effort since the beginning.
But it all came from that evening when we all realized that the Senate was going to hang on the Georgia runoffs--feeling helpless, and then saying, "no, let's do something."
Doing things--finding your team, finding your community--is magical.
The feeling of helplessness is there to remind you to find your tiny corner of the world where you have that, where you can pitch in and do something.
LIke you so eloquently said in The Suffragette Scandal, it can feel like we're emptying the Thames with a thimble, but when we are all doing it together they're no telling what we can accomplish! How many gardens we can water in the meantime.
This is so true. A few years ago I found a local group working on various social justice issues. We try to make rent here more affordable and house the homeless and protect kids in the justice system. Incremental change gained painfully, but it helps a bit to know I'm doing *something*.
Last year, they asked me to write and submit their official testimony in support of protecting trans health care in our state. It was a small thing, but it made me feel good to represent several thousand Jews in Maryland saying "We *will* protect these people."
Incremental change looks tiny when judged by all the things that need to be done, but for the people you do house and the kids you protect, the difference is life-changing.
That matters. Those people matter.
