Ilana and Lydia's Bike Fundraiser
Donation protected
Ilana and Lydia (#IL linois), two gals raised next to the sweet water of Lake Michigan, are meeting on the salty Northwest coast to bike 1,063 miles to San Francisco.
Leaving amazing communities in Boston and Vancouver, we are pedaling our way through this transition with no idea what’s in store over the next month. We are excited, nervous, and eager for the challenge of propelling ourselves through Washington, Oregon, and California.
We are (hopefully) carrying all we need physically to get us through this journey- chafe relief cream for our bums, tweezers for our brows, and enough trail mix to cement our identities as crunched-out granola girls until 2070!
But this trip is powered by so much more- not only deep love and support from family and friends- but also financial security, racial privilege, American citizenship, and many other factors influencing our distinct identities. Biking for a month across indigenous land is a history we could easily opt out of confronting.
With all of this in mind, with hope for a more just future, we are coupling our ride with a fundraising ask. At the end of the month we will be donating the money from this fundraiser to Comunidades Enraizadas Community Land Trust and The Emergent Fund. Please read below for more information and donate what you can!
Much love, Ilana and Lydia
-Comunidades Enraizadas Community Land Trust. Community land trusts (CLTs) are tools used to ensure that the power and control of land development in urban settings is held for perpetuity in the hands of the community. Lydia has worked for- and learned immensely from- Comunidades Enraizadas (or "Rooted Communities") over the past year. Comunidades Enraizadas is a predominantly female, immigrant, Latinx- led CLT in Chelsea, MA, a small city directly north of Boston. They are organizing a CLT to build affordable housing in their community, foster cooperative living, and resist displacement in a rapidly gentrifying city.
-The Emergent fund. The Emergent Fund was established tonhelp move quick resources with no strings attached to communities that were and continue to be under attack by federal policies and priorities – immigrants, women, Muslim and Arab-American communities, Black people, Indigenous communities, LGBTQ communities, and all people of color. The Fund focuses on grassroots organizing and power building in communities of color who are facing injustice based on racial, ethnic, religious and other forms of discrimination. More info can be found here: https://www.emergentfund.net
Leaving amazing communities in Boston and Vancouver, we are pedaling our way through this transition with no idea what’s in store over the next month. We are excited, nervous, and eager for the challenge of propelling ourselves through Washington, Oregon, and California.
We are (hopefully) carrying all we need physically to get us through this journey- chafe relief cream for our bums, tweezers for our brows, and enough trail mix to cement our identities as crunched-out granola girls until 2070!
But this trip is powered by so much more- not only deep love and support from family and friends- but also financial security, racial privilege, American citizenship, and many other factors influencing our distinct identities. Biking for a month across indigenous land is a history we could easily opt out of confronting.
With all of this in mind, with hope for a more just future, we are coupling our ride with a fundraising ask. At the end of the month we will be donating the money from this fundraiser to Comunidades Enraizadas Community Land Trust and The Emergent Fund. Please read below for more information and donate what you can!
Much love, Ilana and Lydia
-Comunidades Enraizadas Community Land Trust. Community land trusts (CLTs) are tools used to ensure that the power and control of land development in urban settings is held for perpetuity in the hands of the community. Lydia has worked for- and learned immensely from- Comunidades Enraizadas (or "Rooted Communities") over the past year. Comunidades Enraizadas is a predominantly female, immigrant, Latinx- led CLT in Chelsea, MA, a small city directly north of Boston. They are organizing a CLT to build affordable housing in their community, foster cooperative living, and resist displacement in a rapidly gentrifying city.
-The Emergent fund. The Emergent Fund was established tonhelp move quick resources with no strings attached to communities that were and continue to be under attack by federal policies and priorities – immigrants, women, Muslim and Arab-American communities, Black people, Indigenous communities, LGBTQ communities, and all people of color. The Fund focuses on grassroots organizing and power building in communities of color who are facing injustice based on racial, ethnic, religious and other forms of discrimination. More info can be found here: https://www.emergentfund.net
Co-organizers (2)
Lydia Collins
Organizer
Evanston, IL
Ilana Marder-Eppstein
Co-organizer