Memorial Fund Grants

On the evening of May 25 a group of around 10 people, including Mar
Valdecantos and Lisa Sexton, met by Zoom to hear about anti-racism
work done with support from two $2000 grants made in June 2021 from
the CVFM memorial fund.
Lisa Sexton described work of the Say Their Names Northfield
organization, which has a Facebook and a web presence, both readily
found by searching online. Say Their Names was founded in the
aftermath of George Floyd's murder, and has been led partly by
Cecilia Cornejo, a frequent CVFM attender. Over the past year the
organization has organized over 30 public art ``interventions,''
publicly honoring and remembering Black people killed by police,
as well as other important Black cultural figures. These interventions
continue, often with 10--20 participants. Interventions originally
centered on chalking names and faces on Bridge Square sidewalks,
but a local ordinance appears to forbid this use of public space,
so other media, such as physical posters and online postings, are
now used.
Mar Valdecantos described work of the Northfield Antiracist Action
Coalition. The NAAC, also founded in the wake of George Floyd's
murder, brings together various organizations to coordinate action
and advocacy for social improvement. Soon after its formation the
NAAC decided to focus mainly on housing issues, with special emphasis
on helping low-income and immigrant residents improve and eventually
own their own living quarters. We learned that housing problems
are difficult and severe in our community, and that obtaining
financing is especially difficult for people holding taxpayer identification numbers
rather than Social Security numbers. In the long run NAAC hopes
to see the creation of a resident-owned community (ROC), in which residents, often
formerly renters, own their own physical homes or trailers and
share ownership of the land. The NAAC has used our contribution
largely to support modest stipends for people, many of them poor,
who attend meetings and participate in NAAC work.