The Personal is Professional: Looking Back to Move Forward

Good vibes incoming! This month, we brought the mics to the Tzedek Connect table, digging into how our pasts impact who we are and how we show up in our social justice work today. Featuring voices from various backgrounds, these beautiful reflections illuminate the diverse paths that have led us to this moment. From favorite foods to family values, from "otherness" to overcoming, these childhood fragments influence our social change strategies and selves (whether we like it or not).

Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to our incredible grantees for sharing their stories and compassion in pursuit of genuine connection. In a philanthropic landscape where trust can be as scarce as it is vital, this openness is truly a gift to Tzedek and to community. 

Collectively, these conversations circle back to humanizing the philanthropy experience on all sides. The takeaway? Diversity crafts a richer, more inclusive path toward social justice. Keep lifting each other up and showing up — it's how we rise together! True story.

We'll see you same time, same place next month. Until then, peace.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

We're profoundly, profoundly interconnected.

Speaker 2 0:07

We don't always live that way, we don't always acknowledge it.

Speaker 3 0:09

But, if we're going to heal we have to live it, experience it and create institutions that celebrate it. Can we create a we where no one's on the outside of it?

Speaker 4 0:20

Welcome to the Uplift with Zedek.

Speaker 5 0:22

Real talk for real change. Before we jump in, a quick reminder of why we're here and what we hope to achieve. We're here to build authentic community relationships and help fuel social transformation in Asheville, north Carolina. We believe collective liberation is not only possible but probable, as we share, listen and learn together. We're here for the process. However, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities. They represent what's good Western North Carolina. This is Michael Hoban, the Director of Communications with the Zedek Social Justice Fund. This month, we're sharing stories and insights from our brilliant, bold and talented grantee community.

Childhood Memories & Social Work Impact

Speaker 5 1:00

This episode is titled the Personalist Professional Looking Back to Move Forward. The goal was to explore how our past impacts who we are and how we show up in our present social justice work. With the help of these beautiful beings. We did that and so much more. If you're looking for a reminder that change is truly possible, that there are real human beings doing this work for real human purposes, you are in the right place. Let's jump in. Think about your child self. Some of you may have to reach further back than others, but once you think about that little you right, tell me something about that little you. What was your favorite food toy, thing to play with or do? Is there a particular value, lesson or person that has shaped your approach to social justice and community work?

Speaker 4 1:44

Wow, that's interesting. So Little Tiffany was extremely inquisitive. They used to call me motor mouth because I talk a lot and I ask a lot of questions. I really love my Barbie dolls and my Cabbage Patch dolls and my favorite item was a blackboard and I finally got some chalk and the highlight of that was an eraser. So I would take all my Barbie dolls, cabbage patches, teddy bears and my two living brothers and they would sit on the steps and I would play teacher. So little Tiffany always wanted to be this performer and an educator and I wanted to infuse those to be super famous, similar to Rudy on the Huxtables.

Speaker 4 2:25

My mom was an affiliate of the Black Panther Party. My mother ran with Sonny Carson, who was about honoring Black heroes in Brooklyn, new York, and her connections to Queen of Four, which was around Afrocentric healing health and wellness. So all of those things were infused in myself and my two brothers as a child. In order for us to do anything extracurricular or fun, the first thing we had to do was write a Black History Report from our Black History Encyclopedia collection that we had at home. So a lot of the social justice work that I implement now came from my upbringing. My mother rebelled when she was young against white pagan holidays and we didn't understand what that was all about. But how we learned was she volunteered a lot. When she volunteers, of course, we're a voluntold. So we were in different Black events, from parades in Harlem, new York, to being cheerleaders in Coney Island and the Mermaid Parade, vendoring and passing out flyers for Unity Day in Coney Island and the Mermaid Parade vendoring and passing out flyers for Unity Day in Coney Island.

Speaker 6 3:27

From a young age, my mom instilled in us that sense of solidarity and Black pride and my dad instilled in us a sense of work ethic and hospitality Favorite food as a kid, probably just like rice and like spam and like egg and that's just a very like cultural thing on my end Spam and that's and like egg and that's just a very like cultural thing on my end.

Speaker 6 3:45

I immigrated to the, to the US, when I was really young, when I was five, and it was with my mom.

Speaker 6 3:51

She was a single mother, no-transcript between, like growing up in a third world country and in America.

Speaker 6 4:18

I was like, oh, we did it, like she did exactly what she was supposed to do. But then, growing up as an adult and seeing all the actual systemic things that were in her way and when she actually like revealed to me how hard it was, like the process of just coming over, but also how hard it was just being in America and like not speaking English and not knowing anybody, and just like the hostility that she would receive just based on how she looked. Learning that as an adult I think that that's just the biggest thing is that it's not just a oh like, you just have to work as hard as you can Like sometimes there well, most of the times, all the time there's all these systems that are actually just going against you and looking back, it's just realizing that, like my mom worked like five times as hard to get to where she is now, and even then it's not necessarily ever going to be as much as she could have, just because of you know, like racism and sexism, the little things.

Speaker 7 5:15

Child, janet, really liked to play in the woods that were right behind where I grew up, in a creek that ran through there. Then, as I got older, I loved to read. I grew up with a mom who was really involved with community work, and without explicitly expressing this to me, I think what I got is you show up this to me. I think what I got is you show up. I can remember, even in second grade, having a discussion with Robert Afzal on the stairs in my elementary school about development. I think back to that, but those were the words that I grew up playing in and they were going to be developed and taken down. So I don't know, I guess it was showing up.

Speaker 8 6:08

When I think about my childhood I think about a lot of playing, because we're talking about a time where there was no cell phones or internet. All the fun that you can have was more analogic with the hands, with the feeling, with the air, with the mud and with things around your nature and, of course, friends. So my childhood was a very happy childhood, very community center, because we live in a street like around 20 kids five years apart, but we all play together and there was playing all day long. There was a time when there was security to lift a kid all day long on the street. I think I was fortunate enough to live in that time where we were out of technology and we were more into community sense.

Speaker 8 6:56

Also, you're talking about the 70s and we were living in a kind of revolutionary socialist movement in Latin America. So you got Cuba in the 50s. Then you have all the spreading of the new world and the new idea with the society we can do more. You know there was less of all commercial things At that time. I didn't know much, I didn't understand what was socialism, but I could say from the bottom of my heart that I feel how community is in the sense of a child playing safe, not having many differences, like, no, the rich guy and the rich boy and the poor boy. We all almost the same social condition and, yeah, it was an amazing, amazing childhood.

Speaker 8 7:39

One of the things that I experienced is that the older kids teach us how to play. I remember that name. It was like whale there's a name, whale they call ballena. We were five-year-olds, six-year-olds and he was like 12, 13,. Right, he never played with us, but ballena that was the nickname. The whale. He teaches how to play this and let us play, and I think that is something valuable because we knew about the game, but we can make the game in our way.

Speaker 9 8:08

I grew up in a house where my father suffered from mental health issues, so a lot of caretaking fell to me. I don't remember a lot of play, remember a lot of responsibility. Honestly, something that shaped some of my beliefs around sort of we're all in this together, and that I have a piece in it was, ironically, a swastika that was painted on my locker in junior high. I had not had any Jewish friends before that. I lived in a place that was barred Jews were barred from living there historically and it was a big deal and I think that experience sort of filtered through the rest of my life. I went into Peace Corps where I was the only white person in a village, and then I lived in Japan where I was the only white person in my town and otherness, receiving otherness, has made me understand that. I don't want to perpetuate it.

Speaker 2 8:57

Favorite toy as far as like something that was mobile. It was a ripstick. Yeah, that was my favorite toy. And then something smaller would be like I forget what it's called. It's like a vortex or something. You push up on it and they fly in the air. You know they go off the spiral and then they just go crazy. That's always been fun to me.

Speaker 2 9:13

Respect can take you further than money. My mama used to always drill that in my head and it got annoying, but of course, as you get older you see the value in it. It sounds cliche, but when you actually think about it, like how it looks day to day certain situations, money can't necessarily keep you in the door or it doesn't give you that credibility. That doesn't mean that people are open to working with you from like, different backgrounds or you know different needs, as social justice is related. If you have that respect, then they're more open to trust and they're more open to hear your perspective. And again, we just push the needle that way instead of just trying to push things with the check, because that's when it gets superficial, that's when you know people start putting on the front and it just damages the relationship.

Speaker 3 9:54

So whenever we talk about like who am I, I go back to you know who is this little girl? I come from Colombia and so when you asked the question, I immediately thought about waking up to the sound of rancheras. So the sound of Rocío Durcal and Vicente Fernández or Vallenatos Binomio de Oro, my mom cleaning the smell of coffee, the sound of chickens and, you know, waking everybody up, the sound of the city. So I was born in Bogota, which is the capital of Colombia, and when I think about who I am, I just think about this little girl in the streets of Colombia, bogota.

Speaker 3 10:32

So picture this you had to leave your four-year-old child to migrate to the United States so that you're able to give your child a better life. So I lived with my grandfather when I was four. My mom migrated to the United States and my mom, back in the day, had to pay, basically for me to use the passport of another little kid. The story I always talk about it. I had to sell who I was. I was not allowed to enter this capitalistic nation. Being Giannina, I had to enter and be somebody else. What does that do to a five-year-old child? And so that I want to say completely impacted, influenced my social justice work. You know, I believe all my intersectionality is playing. I'm a queer woman, an immigrant, I've been undocumented. English is my second language. You know all of these intersectional identities, english is my second language.

Child Self Gifts

Speaker 1 11:25

You know all of these intersectional identities. My favorite thing to do was going to my grandmother's on the weekend because all of my cousins would be there. We would do things like build go-karts out of two-by-fours and old wheels that we found in a junkyard and have races down a very steep hill. That was not very safe, but none of us ever died, so I guess it was all right. So my grandmother had eight kids and her next door neighbor had 22 kids. They had this amazing apple tree in the yard. In the summer we would take turns sneaking to climb up the apple tree and throw apples down. When we were little, my grandmother required us to take food to people, particularly our elders in community, and so there's a value around taking care of each other. That's kind of carried through for me. In some ways it's good, some ways not so much, but I really do value having a healthy whole community where everyone is seen, heard, valued, appreciated and you know all basic needs are met.

Speaker 5 12:28

All right, so still holding that child self? Think about this how does your child self show up at work in a helpful way? What are the gifts of that little you?

Speaker 4 12:37

Oh, I love this question. The gifts of little Tiffany and I'll say little Tiff is my humor. I can sit in a room with, you know, the most dignified people and I hold my own. I'm balanced, articulate, but I'm bringing humor. Life is not always so serious where we have to be extremely stoic. There's a lightness in the energy that I bring that, even though we might be saving the world and that's our mission and goal the vision is to have fun while we're doing it, so I believe in that.

Speaker 6 13:06

I think just me personally working with youth, I know that there was just like a lot of things that I didn't get as a kid. And just being able to give that to the youth that I work with today and I feel like that's just the way that I kind of get to heal my inner child is like letting them be vulnerable and letting them be their true selves. Because I didn't necessarily get that as a kid. When I first moved to America, you know, when we moved, we moved to Texas and there was like a lot of judgment. I was very like. I was the only kind of like person of my kind where I was.

Speaker 6 13:35

And so now with the youth that I work with, I really want to celebrate the diversity that you know that they bring and like just who they are as people and just letting them be their true selves, whether it's like if they're really emotional or they're really weird or just, you know, really excited, like just letting them be that. As a kid it was very much like police of like don't speak unless you're spoken to and don't act out. So I think now like just letting the youth that I work with, just letting them, giving them that space to do that, the tasks, but showing up to the experiences of the people that I am working with, the community I'm working with and showing up to the joy not just to you know, of course.

Speaker 7 14:31

You know having people's back and so on, but having people's back at times of strength too.

Speaker 8 14:37

I mean, this word is being used in different ways, but it's a way. It's a way of freedom and that's something I'm bringing today. So it's a way that you can do what your potential allows you to do, but in a way that you feel the inside, Because right now, in my work and in our teamwork, I wind up like maybe working at re-editing or producing until 11, 2 LPM. It's the work, but inside we're still playing. We're still playing not with mud, not with other things. Now we're playing with toys of our work.

Speaker 9 15:09

I think sometimes we have these strategies and coping mechanisms when you're younger to get through things, and I still use those.

Speaker 9 15:17

I'm independent, I'm still self-reliant. So those things that helped me get through things in the childhood still help me get through things, and I think I also am trying to find ways to be bigger than those two, because while they can be helpful and they can present like, oh, productivity and being a leader, all of that was rewarded there's also other sides to us being humans and those are things that I'm still, you know, in my ripe old age, still trying to cultivate and I think that I take a lot of that with me in what I do now. I have kids and I don't want to give them the same things. You know they'll have their own stuff, they're going to have their own counselors, they're going to go to therapy you know college fund, therapy fund but I at least want to get further along in the process and that they understand our place, even though they have more privileges than I did growing up, that they understand that that has great responsibility and that I can work on some of my stuff so that they can have their stuff.

Speaker 2 16:07

So the little Tyrone, aka T-Bone he shows up as the little self being open. I notice myself drawn to those who are not necessarily introverted but kind of drawn back until they see something that's like oh, that's my opportunity to, you know, go into the conversation or go into the moment. So basically talking with different kinds of people, being able to relate to them and making sure that like humor is in the situation, because that takes a lot of the edge off of things that can really open the door. It's like a good icebreaker humor and, you know, just being there for people.

Speaker 3 16:37

And when I think about how my story as a little girl impacted me, is that she was driven. This five-year-old girl lived with a family for two weeks. Basically was being trained to act like this family was her family, so that if immigration were to stop her, she would be able to respond in a way that reflected the passport she was using to be reunited with her mother. And these are just some of the sacrifices that social justice workers, organizer, caretakers have to do. Right, that was rough. I believe that the drive would be the greatest gift that I was given the drive and the power, the intelligence that like the drive and the power, the intelligence that like to be like I can do it. I want to say that she's given me love, kindness and that like desire, that like purpose, that you know that little girl we're talking about, a little girl who lived in a town that was not paid, poor, but also so happy, so full, so full of life and that purity that kids have. So she's given me that.

Child Self Challenges

Speaker 1 17:38

I bring a genuine compassion for people, authentically wanting folks to be well and wanting to work in a way that I am uplifting and supporting those who are around me a part of my team, people in community, organizations and individuals. Just a genuine sense of care, all right let's flip it.

Speaker 5 17:59

How does that child self show up at work in a way that's maybe less than helpful?

Speaker 4 18:04

Oh, wow, that is such a great question. For me it's multi-layered and I just I love that phrase because nothing is just straightforward or black and white. There's always the gray area. Straightforward or black and white, there's always the gray area. For me, my trauma or issues come up when I see that it's a cockfight. So we're not being intentional with being solutions-oriented. What the intention is is for you to get off salivating on your accomplishments or breadcrumbing situations escalating, that to seem as though you're making a huge difference. But we all know that those are empty words. That is not connected to any direct action. That triggers me in a way where I shut down and I just let them lead themselves to a ditch or a brick wall, because they're definitely going to hit it.

Speaker 6 18:50

I think for me because I wasn't necessarily always given spaces to cope sometimes comes up in random ways, like in random times, and the most inconvenient times usually is that I'm like there's just situations where I realize, oh, like I am not able to cope with this right now, but I still kind of have to, because if I'm working or something you know, you kind of you have to push through it and so that's just kind of like the not so pretty ways is just having to deal with that in convenient times.

Speaker 6 19:16

I think I get overwhelmed a lot, I get very overstimulated, and that happens a lot. You know, working with youth like it could just get loud there's a lot of like unexpected things that happen. I grew up with like a lot of unexpected things happening to me and so I've kind of learned to expect that in my adult life. But it's still like there are a lot of real moments where I'm just like I'm very aware that I cannot cope with this right now. But I think that's just something that I've learned is to like be able to tap out and create those boundaries when needed.

Speaker 7 19:46

As a white person who grew up with definitely enough resources and living in this water of white supremacy, you know all the analogies. I think that I still struggle with that perfectionism, that wanting to do things right.

Speaker 8 20:07

Growing up in that environment. The not much positive part is the one that you don't grow up with a structure. For me, I mean, I can follow the structure, but it is not in my nature. I mean, show me the goal, I create the way. Unfortunately, we live in a society that right now, and especially in our work, we have to develop our capacities inside a frame, inside goals, strategies you know, in certain ways they help you to get organized and everything. There's a saying in the military. The only way you can complain about our order is when you finish it. That's the structure that we have now in our whole society in a way we can say. But growing up in that environment is kind of difficult to adapt.

Speaker 9 20:49

Sometimes it's hard to sit in another person's shoes. I try not to be this way about like, yeah, my issue, my issue, my issue, because I want us all to be in it together. And sometimes it shows up and I have to catch myself. I was in an organizer peer group and we were asked to share something that had informed us in our organizing that we haven't shared. Before I was thinking about when I was in Peace Corps and I was nearly raped Up until the Me Too movement I had never shared that story.

Speaker 9 21:16

It was assumed, of course that's what's going to happen through life, because that was just the way that it was being a woman in a patriarchal, male-dominated society, until the Me Too movement. So many of those stories for me and my sisters were never shared because it was just assumed that we were going to maneuver in that way and we had to create all these ways of coping with it. But it was just assumed that we were going to maneuver in that way and we had to create all these you know these ways of coping with it. But it was like, oh OK, this is how I like I need to use my strategies to keep safe. How can I keep safe. I felt safe at home. I didn't feel cared for, but I felt safe and that way I was privileged. And in other ways sometimes it's not the material support that we need.

Speaker 2 21:52

Less than helpful. I less than helpful. I know that sometimes it can be my way, or the highway, and in hindsight you know it's clear. It's like, oh, okay, now I know what to do to move forward. But in the moment sometimes you can get tunnel vision and it's like, okay, now my pride is on the line, what do I do here? Or I know this is the course of action I need to take. But there's also some perception management because, again, I'm thinking about the opinions of others, or you know, their approval or validation. So that's one way that my childhood self shows up. That's not so helpful, but again, since I'm aware of it now, taking steps to you know, undo that.

Speaker 3 22:23

So that wounded child, it's been a life journey. I left home when I was 18. My mom, she's diagnosed bipolar and so little me had to learn how to survive, and that's a double-edged sword being in constant survival is killing me. And so I have been on this journey of acknowledging this survival mentality so that I can thrive and heal, so I am properly able to show up. But what happens is that the little girl, this little girl, had to take control in any way that she could, so that she can feel safe. And so this control came into my adult life. As an executive director, as a co-executive director, as somebody who works with people. It meant that I've been having to release control and to release the expectation of how things will result and instead learn how to truly live in the present, which is extremely hard. Right, every day looks different.

Speaker 1 23:14

Oh, incredibly emotional and attached to too many things and too many people and too many outcomes, and so it can be difficult sometimes to not feel the feels and show the feels. It's difficult sometimes to be able to distinguish between what's the actual issue and what's trauma issue, and so sometimes some wounds and some shadowy figures from the past creep up and it can cloud my judgment and can make me a little difficult to work with.

Trust-Building - Pitfalls & Possibilities

Speaker 5 23:48

Okay, final question, and please be as honest as possible Do you believe that engaging in trust building activities, like Zedek put on today, can truly, genuinely positively impact how you show up in this work now, today? Or is this a lofty goal? Is there another, maybe better?

Speaker 4 24:08

way. It's definitely lofty, it's intentional, with breaking barriers. It's never been seen before or done. I must say from my experience, especially around funders, trust is so small or minimal in this environment in Asheville, in nonprofit work and philanthropy, that this is uncharted. So we don't know. And for Zetta to take that feet on and not know where they're going to land is phenomenal to me.

Speaker 4 24:42

I want to utilize this opportunity to really build and gain trust within the philanthropy world. But within the professional world A lot of times we don't truly trust one another. What we're doing is we're waiting for one another to shut up so that now we can share and overshare or just kind of pull the attention away from what's happening, to evade or avoid. So I applaud Zedek, I applaud you guys for this recording right here, but also for the ability to do something that you don't know where you're going to land. So you trust us, you're walking in with trust. You trust that you don't even have the answer you don't know. So let's just pull it from one another and that's an interdependency that does not walk with a sense of codependency or needing individuals to depend on you. So I think that's profound and I thank you guys for that.

Speaker 6 25:29

I appreciate these spaces to be able to build trust with the other orgs that you guys work with. I would like to see it in a way where it's kind of within the org itself too. I think that would be a really fun thing to do.

Speaker 7 25:44

It makes sense to be able to work with other people and to just gain trust with strangers, but I think also, like within each individual organization, it would be really cool to see this type of thing just building more trust with the people that I work very closely with important as someone who's a grant writer and I engage with philanthropy all the time and have for so many years and before currently, where I'm working with, my trust in the general and just philanthropy as it's set up today in the United States is so, so low.

Speaker 7 26:28

So to do this trust building with Zedek provides an opportunity for me to not just think about what it should look like but to actually feel it and to kind of move forward into other relationships with other funders, with what it should feel like. Right now I feel like I'm always a little defensive on the part of the amazing organizations I'm writing grants for and that ultimately is not good for anybody. So and I just I don't think we can make change in the greater philanthropy world unless there's an opportunity to feel like how it could look different, how it could feel different.

Speaker 8 27:18

I think the base of any relationship is communication conversation and I think what CEDEC is doing in the way that you can see it, is open the door for conversation and dialogue. Like in any relationship, the first conversation is not 100% transparent. We always have the etiquette of the society. But if you continue after the 10th, 15th or 20th conversation, you will see that you are getting the real essence of the person who is talking with you. So I salute and I want SEDEC to continue this conversation, because not only is allowing SEDEC to get contact with the organizations that are being founded by SEDEC, but also give us the opportunity between organizations to know us a little better, and I think the benefit is not way that we go forward, it's when we come together, it's when we build trust with each other and not just from the funder, like I would like that trust within the organizations too, that I can go, you know, around SEDEC and say I want to show up for you and hey, we're doing voting.

Speaker 9 28:24

I know there's undocumented people in your community that we can share and do this together, because I think there's always strength when we can come together and do it as a community, a trusting community. So I think there's value in that. My world normally is fairly homogeneous and when I come to SETA and you have access to so many other different organizations that are working in different ways with different populations, it feels rich because we can share realities and see each other in a very different way than on a surface level.

Speaker 2 28:52

It's not lauded to me at all. It's actually valid because it helps you build reps. So if you're trying to just build trust every once in a while or every quarter, I see it as like turning on a switch. But if you're going to these workshops and things like that, you're constantly exercising that muscle. So now it's not as nerve wracking, you won't be as anxious.

Speaker 2 29:09

Or even now, like last year or two years ago, I'll be very nervous right now doing this or trying to say you know the perfect answer or the interview answer, but right now you just have again because you get the reps in behind the scenes. So it's not like I need to show up as my best self or put on the front or I need to say this or that Because you got your reps and you know you confident in yourself. You just go forward with what feels natural. That's likely the hardest part a lot of times just getting started or getting past that initial hump. After that it seems like the answers are, they kind of connect. They don't always come easily, but again, you see, the next best thing is usually how it is if you focus on the solution over the problem.

Speaker 3 29:46

Okay, here's what's coming up, and I think is a both and. Yes, I believe that we could constantly do trust building activities that allow us to learn each other as people. I think we get so ingrained in quote, unquote the work that it becomes just that. The work becomes a weight, not a purpose, not a journey. It becomes a destination. That's when it becomes toxic and problematic and stressful. Yes, I do believe that we can build trust if we believe in it. Yes, I do believe that we can build trust if we believe in it.

Speaker 3 30:14

The reality, though, is, if our journeys are not aligned and you're still responding from your wounded self, or if I am still responding from my wounded self, I am unable to respond and show off authentically. So, when we're doing this type of work, the reality is that a lot of us are wounded. We know that it's hard for you to heal when you are in the environment of survival, and so the question is how do you build trust within organizations, philanthropy, acknowledging that we are working within the environment of survival, I'm not going to show up and go out of my way for organizations or people who do not show up for me as well, and that is where that trust comes in right. What's beneficial is us learning more about each other. How do we humanize our experience as social justice organizers, leaders, workers, etc.

Speaker 3 31:03

Before I am a queer Latina, undocumented I am human. I bleed, I cry, I hurt. If you took a second to know me, you'll know that I'm actually really kind, that I'm actually very gentle, that I'm actually very, very emotional. And also, don't mess with me, you know.

Speaker 1 31:19

I actually don't think it's too lofty of a goal. I actually believe that it can work. I think my biggest concern is that whatever Zedek does can't always be about the pie in the sky. It needs to be about the here and the now and what incremental steps can we really take to make change happen and that people don't feel like we're always reaching for something that's unattainable. So, yes, I do think that trust building activities like what Zedek did today can be effective, and I do believe that you can build trusting relationships between funders and grantees. It's not impossible. It just takes time.

Speaker 5 31:58

I want to thank each and every participant who shared their story, who showed up to our Zeta Connect event, who keep showing up. We can't do this without you. These are beautiful stories, beautiful people and beautiful work that's being done in Asheville. Building trust is possible. It just takes time, it just takes intention and it just takes people showing up and sharing out, and we are so privileged to be part of that today. The personal is professional, the personal is political, the personal is everything, because we are human beings in a shared human experience. Thank you all for leaning in today. Until next time, stay human Peace.