Rise and Shine's Annual Update - 2023
Published on December 29, 2023 by Daisy Carter
What a big year for Rise and Shine!
Since 2021, Rise and Shine members have been practicing community care as a means of building local power and political consciousness in low-income, BIPOC, and other marginalized communities in Bowling Green. This year, that we secured our first fiscal sponsorship through Open Collective, helping us to build more structure and sustainability around our mutual aid work. Here are a couple of the things that we've accomplished this year:
1. Awarded our first grant from the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table for $15,000! -This allowed us to create two, brand-new (paid) pilot part-time organizing positions - an Outreach/Scouting Coordinator and a Networking + Movement Organizer. With this funding, we have been conducting bi-weekly street outreach to our homeless community, securing organizing collaborations (ie: Pro-Palestine teach-in w/ B.L.A.C.K, Louisville for Palestine, and Community Control Now), and invest in leadership development.
2. Recruited 20+ new local members and met our membership fundraising goal of $300 - This year, we have taken up a "pay-your-dues" membership model to help increase membership engagement within the organization, and fundraise for expenses that may come up for hosting membership meetings or general community needs.
3. Support and development for Bowling Green's first tenant union, BG Mobile Homeowner's United - The affordable housing crisis in Bowling Green has always been fueled by gentrification, but this year we saw in real-time the effects it has on the community. Rise and Shine, along with other organizing partners and comrades, have been supporting and fighting for the 30+ families that are set to be evicted from their trailers due to redevelopment and land grabbing. We have been working with the residents on a housing campaign aimed at advocating for better local tenant protections, and ultimately winning compensation for moving costs. Our support has looked like mobilizing the community towards signing their petition, helping with campaign strategy + development, and providing mutual aid. So far, the families have won free rent in January, and evictions have been deferred to 2024.
4. Hosted + collaborated on at least five political education workshops centering mutual aid, climate survival + disaster resiliency, international solidarity, and healing justice (...we took a trip to New Orleans this year!) - Rise and Shine values the role of political education as a part of mutual aid organizing. Not only do we want to educate and inform other organizing initiatives about the importance of mutual aid in this political moment, but how to make those learnings accessible. We've had the privilege to work with multiple organizations such as the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table, The Climate Mobilization, Power Shift Network, and Rethinking Economics to present various presentations on the intersection of mutual aid and other systemic injustices.
5. Joined the Western Kentucky Coalition at KCET - The Western Kentucky Coalition is a group of over 10+ organizations working to build disaster resiliency and political power for marginalized communities living throughout the Western Kentucky region. This includes developing organizing infrastructure in historically disinvested communities, pushing for just policy and local climate resilient infrastructure, and centering mutual aid as a political and base-building strategy.
This year, Rise and Shine focused on how to build an organizing team and decentralize mutual aid work from previous organizers who held down most of the responsibility. With the help of The Climate Mobilization, we have been able to experiment with decentralized organizing, assigning roles rather than small tasks to budding local organizers. Our biggest challenge in 2023 has been building organizing capacity. At the start of the new year, Rise and Shine onboarded + trained five new organizers to push forward mutual aid work in Bowling Green. By the end of the year, only two organizers have been able to pick up this work, primarily those who been getting paid to do so. Barriers such as unstable work + income, illness, and mental health has made organizing difficult for the collective. Getting clearer on our self-interest and personal capacity is crucial moving into 2024.
In 2024, we are prioritizing intention, diversity in leadership, and setting realistic goals + expectations. Our organizers are also interested in making our mutual aid organizing less insular, meaning more networking and connecting with other organizations, local businesses, and other minds that are politically aligned.
Since 2021, Rise and Shine members have been practicing community care as a means of building local power and political consciousness in low-income, BIPOC, and other marginalized communities in Bowling Green. This year, that we secured our first fiscal sponsorship through Open Collective, helping us to build more structure and sustainability around our mutual aid work. Here are a couple of the things that we've accomplished this year:
1. Awarded our first grant from the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table for $15,000! -This allowed us to create two, brand-new (paid) pilot part-time organizing positions - an Outreach/Scouting Coordinator and a Networking + Movement Organizer. With this funding, we have been conducting bi-weekly street outreach to our homeless community, securing organizing collaborations (ie: Pro-Palestine teach-in w/ B.L.A.C.K, Louisville for Palestine, and Community Control Now), and invest in leadership development.
2. Recruited 20+ new local members and met our membership fundraising goal of $300 - This year, we have taken up a "pay-your-dues" membership model to help increase membership engagement within the organization, and fundraise for expenses that may come up for hosting membership meetings or general community needs.
3. Support and development for Bowling Green's first tenant union, BG Mobile Homeowner's United - The affordable housing crisis in Bowling Green has always been fueled by gentrification, but this year we saw in real-time the effects it has on the community. Rise and Shine, along with other organizing partners and comrades, have been supporting and fighting for the 30+ families that are set to be evicted from their trailers due to redevelopment and land grabbing. We have been working with the residents on a housing campaign aimed at advocating for better local tenant protections, and ultimately winning compensation for moving costs. Our support has looked like mobilizing the community towards signing their petition, helping with campaign strategy + development, and providing mutual aid. So far, the families have won free rent in January, and evictions have been deferred to 2024.
4. Hosted + collaborated on at least five political education workshops centering mutual aid, climate survival + disaster resiliency, international solidarity, and healing justice (...we took a trip to New Orleans this year!) - Rise and Shine values the role of political education as a part of mutual aid organizing. Not only do we want to educate and inform other organizing initiatives about the importance of mutual aid in this political moment, but how to make those learnings accessible. We've had the privilege to work with multiple organizations such as the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table, The Climate Mobilization, Power Shift Network, and Rethinking Economics to present various presentations on the intersection of mutual aid and other systemic injustices.
5. Joined the Western Kentucky Coalition at KCET - The Western Kentucky Coalition is a group of over 10+ organizations working to build disaster resiliency and political power for marginalized communities living throughout the Western Kentucky region. This includes developing organizing infrastructure in historically disinvested communities, pushing for just policy and local climate resilient infrastructure, and centering mutual aid as a political and base-building strategy.
This year, Rise and Shine focused on how to build an organizing team and decentralize mutual aid work from previous organizers who held down most of the responsibility. With the help of The Climate Mobilization, we have been able to experiment with decentralized organizing, assigning roles rather than small tasks to budding local organizers. Our biggest challenge in 2023 has been building organizing capacity. At the start of the new year, Rise and Shine onboarded + trained five new organizers to push forward mutual aid work in Bowling Green. By the end of the year, only two organizers have been able to pick up this work, primarily those who been getting paid to do so. Barriers such as unstable work + income, illness, and mental health has made organizing difficult for the collective. Getting clearer on our self-interest and personal capacity is crucial moving into 2024.
In 2024, we are prioritizing intention, diversity in leadership, and setting realistic goals + expectations. Our organizers are also interested in making our mutual aid organizing less insular, meaning more networking and connecting with other organizations, local businesses, and other minds that are politically aligned.