This week’s issue of Real Change includes the final installment of Assistant Editor Rosette Royale’s “Gravity of Abuse,” a four-part investigative portrait of one family’s struggle for survival and the everyday heroes who helped along the way. It also marks the final week of our spring fund drive.
Bearing witness to the countless acts of heroism and human decency that unfold every day is one of the great privileges of our work. The subjects of Rosette’s remarkable reporting, Brandy and her baby son, Ian, are just one family living below the poverty line, fighting their way to something better.
Most of the time, stories like theirs go untold.
Everyday someone wakes up in a parking garage or a greenbelt, stows his gear and begins his day. Another person has been sleeping in her car, looking for work, trying to stay positive. Others struggle to get clean or to stay sober or perhaps to simply find warmth or stay dry.
All of this takes courage. Getting to something better takes friends, too. We need you to step up now and be that friend as we close the gap this week toward our fund drive goal.
Become part of the story
Brandy’s fight to overcome poverty, addiction, poor self-esteem and abuse didn’t unfold in a straight line. These things seldom do. There are moments of clarity and confusion. People take steps forward and backward.
Few of us are fortunate enough to go through life without stumbling. When we do fall, it’s good to know that there are some — like those who helped Brandy — to hold us up.
Real Change, as you know from your own experience, is much more than a newspaper. We are a caring community. Twice a year, we ask our friends to step up and strengthen our work.
Sixty percent of our $920,000 budget comes directly from readers like you. Last year, more than 1,650 people chose to support quality journalism, gutsy grassroots organizing and immediate opportunity for homeless and very low-income people in Seattle.
We need to hit our spring fund drive goal of $150,000. In less than a month, we have raised $93,610. Coming as it does mostly from gifts of $100 or less, this is an amazing testament to our broad and deep community support.
And yet, $93,610 is not enough. If we fall short of meeting our goal, the talk around the Real Change office shifts from what we can do to what we can’t. We have exciting and necessary work to do. We need your help now to make it all possible.
A reader-powered institution
In 17 years, Real Change has grown to become a powerful community institution that stands up for the poor.
This month, the Northwest Society of Professional Journalists held its annual awards banquet. Staff reporter Aaron Burkhalter won a first-place award for education reporting for his timely story on student loan debt. Rosette Royale won second place in social issues reporting for his in-depth look at the misguided smear campaign conducted against Low Income Housing Institute Director Sharon Lee. Jon Williams, whose remarkable talent is evident in every issue of this paper, took third place for page design.
Week after week, under the leadership of Editor Amy Roe, the Real Change news team and the many amazing volunteers who make our paper possible deliver a professional product that makes our vendors proud.
Our 2012-2014 Real Change Strategic Plan seeks to expand the reach of our paper, strengthen our grassroots organizing and create the long-term stability we need to thrive in tough times.
Our five-member vendor services team, led by Tara Moss, is working to expand the direct opportunity we offer by extending distribution of Real Change to the east and south. Accomplishing this goal will also build readership in new communities, broaden the reach of Real Change’s advocacy and offer new opportunities to the more than 800 vendors who sell our paper each year.
Our organizing and advocacy to bring an economic justice focus to ending homelessness in our region builds upon the energy of the Occupy movement and our long-term partnership with grassroots homeless allies share/wheel and Nickelsville.
Our strategic plan builds upon our strengths as a cross-class organization to engage, educate and activate readers and vendors to build a more just economy.
Our development and administrative staff is working with the Real Change board to build upon our core strength of grassroots support and ensure we have what we need to thrive in a challenging funding environment.
We need your help now to make our spring drive a success. Support our essential work today to be the change that we need. Make a secure donation at realchangenews.org, or mail your tax-deductible contribution to 219 1st Ave. S.,
Ste. 220, Seattle, WA, 98104. Please give generously.
Thank you.