White Whale Foundation 2020 Campaign
Donation protected
Please note: any donations received between October 13th and November 3rd will go directly to our local initiatives.
After November 3rd, your donation goes toward our 2020 Campaign to support the work of our partners in Guatemala. Currently during COVID 19, many people we work with are without work and cannot feed their families, and they do not have the same resources we have such as stimulus money and unemployment access. As a result, they are being hit very hard. Your generosity right now goes directly to community leaders who are actively distributing food and supplies to their communities.
Background
Jeremiah Griswold began his tattoo apprenticeship in Guatemala while volunteering in gang prisons and helping to cover up gang tattoos for young men and women who wanted to change their lives. Now, Jeremiah and his team of artists from White Whale Tattoo will return and strengthen relations with indigenous leaders to continue this life-saving work.
Luis was a founding member of one of Guatemala's most notorious gangs but left the gang lifestyle and now has a wife and three children. He provides for them now by selling cupcakes and baked goods on the public busses, but lived in fear that he might be killed or thrown in prison just for having an old gang tattoo. Now that his old gang tattoo has been covered up with a beautiful cupcake tattoo, Luis knows he will get to go home to his wife and kids every night.
Your tax-deductible gift will fuel White Whale Foundation's work to help transform and even save lives through art, and create jobs for new artists in Guatemala who will sustain this important work!
Luis and his beautiful cupcake tattoo!
Christian showing off his new tattoo. A resident of Guatemala City and budding tattoo artist, he uses a wheelchair after being shot.
Check out this video of Jeremiah describing the work in Guatemala:
Our mission
It is the mission of the White Whale Foundation to empower individuals by providing necessary tools for personal transformation and self-actualization, while developing relationships across racial, cultural, geographical and other divides, in hopes of expediting transformation in their communities. White Whale has developed some beautiful relationships with organizations and individuals promoting social transformation in Guatemala.
The White Whale Foundation is a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit in Cincinnati, OH. Charitable donations made to White Whale are tax deductible, and verified by both the state of Ohio and the federal government.
Our work aims to empower indigenous leaders who are changing their communities, including in the basurero (waste dump) and La Limonada, one of the largest urban slums in Central America. We are dreaming big with our friends in Guatemala about the restoration of this beautiful country, and we feel personally on the hook because of the atrocities inflicted on Guatemala and other Latin American countries at the hands of North America in recent history.
Click HERE to read an article about the work of White Whale in Guatemala.
How are the funds be used?
1. Our generous team of artists donate their time to travel and work pro-bono in Guatemala, and your support helps cover the logistics of getting them there, as well as the supplies needed for the work.
2. Scholarships and training - We provide scholarships through Pan y Chocolate, an organization that works with some of the most marginalized and oppressed individuals in Guatemala so they can get the training they need to pursue their dreams and get off the dangerous streets in which they sell there bodies the only thing they have to make money. It is a powerful act to give freely and ascribe value to such an individual's body without taking anything in return.
3. Leadership retreats - We provide opportunities for individuals in Zone 3, the basurero (garbage dump) community. Many individuals have grown up sorting through the dump looking for ways to make money, and have never left the dump area. "They think the whole world is a dump," says Fito Sandoval, the leader of the basurero community. We were able to provide the resources for Fito to take about fifty individuals on a camping leadership retreat, many who had never seen the beautiful lakes and mountains of their country.
4. Documentary - The foundation has partnered with an award-winning documentary team to help raise awareness about this work. This work is about all of us. We live in an era of American (and world) history that seems more polarized than ever, viewers are hungry for stories that unite us, shatter divisive illusions and walls, and reach across boundaries to overcome fear with love. The story we have discovered is especially timely in our current political climate.
We will tell the powerful transformative stories of three Guatemalan individuals from oppressed and marginalized communities: a founding member of one of Guatemala’s most notorious gangs, a trans sex worker longing to get off the dangerous streets, and an individual who grew up in the basurero (garbage dump) community. Viewers will learn how a United States sponsored civil war less than three decades ago created the perfect storm for all of these stories to emerge, and feel an urgency to help restore the beautiful country that we devastated for their fruit and land. These heartfelt stories show how a simple act of extending a hand across boundaries can have a profound impact on both parties, and simultaneously expedite personal and systemic transformation. Donors of $100 or more will have their name listed in the credits of the documentary. Donors of $5,000 or more will be listed as Co-Producer. Donors of $10,000 will be listed as Executive Producer of the documentary.
Why White Whale?
Our name references the great white whale of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick, a formative novel while our founder studied literature. Hunting the white whale may be considered a metaphor for chasing after the divine; Jeremiah's own chase led him from serving in Guatemala and obtaining a Master of Arts in Global Urban Leadership.
Jeremiah has always been passionate about the intersection of art and social justice. He's sat on the Advisory Council of Lemonade International, was Executive Director of NuWay Foundation, and for local non-profits.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for joining us in this beautiful restorative work!
- White Whale Crew
After November 3rd, your donation goes toward our 2020 Campaign to support the work of our partners in Guatemala. Currently during COVID 19, many people we work with are without work and cannot feed their families, and they do not have the same resources we have such as stimulus money and unemployment access. As a result, they are being hit very hard. Your generosity right now goes directly to community leaders who are actively distributing food and supplies to their communities.
Background
Jeremiah Griswold began his tattoo apprenticeship in Guatemala while volunteering in gang prisons and helping to cover up gang tattoos for young men and women who wanted to change their lives. Now, Jeremiah and his team of artists from White Whale Tattoo will return and strengthen relations with indigenous leaders to continue this life-saving work.
Luis was a founding member of one of Guatemala's most notorious gangs but left the gang lifestyle and now has a wife and three children. He provides for them now by selling cupcakes and baked goods on the public busses, but lived in fear that he might be killed or thrown in prison just for having an old gang tattoo. Now that his old gang tattoo has been covered up with a beautiful cupcake tattoo, Luis knows he will get to go home to his wife and kids every night.
Your tax-deductible gift will fuel White Whale Foundation's work to help transform and even save lives through art, and create jobs for new artists in Guatemala who will sustain this important work!
Luis and his beautiful cupcake tattoo!Christian showing off his new tattoo. A resident of Guatemala City and budding tattoo artist, he uses a wheelchair after being shot.Check out this video of Jeremiah describing the work in Guatemala:
Our mission
It is the mission of the White Whale Foundation to empower individuals by providing necessary tools for personal transformation and self-actualization, while developing relationships across racial, cultural, geographical and other divides, in hopes of expediting transformation in their communities. White Whale has developed some beautiful relationships with organizations and individuals promoting social transformation in Guatemala.
The White Whale Foundation is a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit in Cincinnati, OH. Charitable donations made to White Whale are tax deductible, and verified by both the state of Ohio and the federal government.
Our work aims to empower indigenous leaders who are changing their communities, including in the basurero (waste dump) and La Limonada, one of the largest urban slums in Central America. We are dreaming big with our friends in Guatemala about the restoration of this beautiful country, and we feel personally on the hook because of the atrocities inflicted on Guatemala and other Latin American countries at the hands of North America in recent history.
Click HERE to read an article about the work of White Whale in Guatemala.
How are the funds be used?
1. Our generous team of artists donate their time to travel and work pro-bono in Guatemala, and your support helps cover the logistics of getting them there, as well as the supplies needed for the work.
2. Scholarships and training - We provide scholarships through Pan y Chocolate, an organization that works with some of the most marginalized and oppressed individuals in Guatemala so they can get the training they need to pursue their dreams and get off the dangerous streets in which they sell there bodies the only thing they have to make money. It is a powerful act to give freely and ascribe value to such an individual's body without taking anything in return.
3. Leadership retreats - We provide opportunities for individuals in Zone 3, the basurero (garbage dump) community. Many individuals have grown up sorting through the dump looking for ways to make money, and have never left the dump area. "They think the whole world is a dump," says Fito Sandoval, the leader of the basurero community. We were able to provide the resources for Fito to take about fifty individuals on a camping leadership retreat, many who had never seen the beautiful lakes and mountains of their country.
4. Documentary - The foundation has partnered with an award-winning documentary team to help raise awareness about this work. This work is about all of us. We live in an era of American (and world) history that seems more polarized than ever, viewers are hungry for stories that unite us, shatter divisive illusions and walls, and reach across boundaries to overcome fear with love. The story we have discovered is especially timely in our current political climate.
We will tell the powerful transformative stories of three Guatemalan individuals from oppressed and marginalized communities: a founding member of one of Guatemala’s most notorious gangs, a trans sex worker longing to get off the dangerous streets, and an individual who grew up in the basurero (garbage dump) community. Viewers will learn how a United States sponsored civil war less than three decades ago created the perfect storm for all of these stories to emerge, and feel an urgency to help restore the beautiful country that we devastated for their fruit and land. These heartfelt stories show how a simple act of extending a hand across boundaries can have a profound impact on both parties, and simultaneously expedite personal and systemic transformation. Donors of $100 or more will have their name listed in the credits of the documentary. Donors of $5,000 or more will be listed as Co-Producer. Donors of $10,000 will be listed as Executive Producer of the documentary.
Why White Whale?
Our name references the great white whale of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick, a formative novel while our founder studied literature. Hunting the white whale may be considered a metaphor for chasing after the divine; Jeremiah's own chase led him from serving in Guatemala and obtaining a Master of Arts in Global Urban Leadership.
Jeremiah has always been passionate about the intersection of art and social justice. He's sat on the Advisory Council of Lemonade International, was Executive Director of NuWay Foundation, and for local non-profits.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for joining us in this beautiful restorative work!
- White Whale Crew
Organizer
Jeremiah Griswold
Organizer
Cincinnati, OH