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IN NEW YORK STATE...
where Tay and Dor live (along with our social media maven, Mary) early voting has begun. There are many different ways to vote this year, depending on where you reside. On Vote.org, you can enter your address to get a quick answer, or scroll down to view the State by State options. We've shared our voting plans below, including our native Ohio resident, Samantha, who you're likely to hear from if you send us any questions or feedback at info@goodfoodjobs.com.
Last week, we talked about a first step for Writing an Equitable Job Post: incorporate an EOE statement - not just as a box to check off your list of components, but as an integral part of your job post, one that braids into the rest of your workplace. (For inspiration, check out some examples from last week.) We look forward to addressing Job Requirements next, and hope you'll reach out if you have thoughts on that, or other areas of a job post you'd like us to delve into.
In the meantime, there are a couple of things on our mind this week, as we turn along with the planet toward another sunset, another day, another week, another season. It seems like there is more at stake in this election than ever in our lifetimes. Many of us will experience increased tension and anxiety as we approach the election. Some of us will use that energy to tighten up - if you've felt like you are holding your breath, you are not alone. Others will push it outward toward the people they encounter.
We're noticing that, even as our own pull toward inward or outward tension moves up and down through these weeks, we find ourselves thinking ahead to what happens next, after the election. Because regardless of the outcome, there is much work to be done. And regardless of the outcome, all the work that has gone into promoting equity and social justice, supporting candidates who will take action to advance those causes, and working with organizations that are already taking action, will not be wasted and must be continued. That collective energy is as real as our ability to stop and take a breath, to slow down, and to smile at a stranger. Our human call to be there for other humans continues on.
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HOW GFJ VOTES
Dorothy will be voting early and in person, a process she tried out during the June primaries. Her early voting polling location is in the next town over, and it was a treat, at that time, to take the walking path with friends and kids in tow, and get an ice cream cone afterward. This time around, with a 9-year-old schooling from home half the day, she will have to duck in and out more quickly. To balance out the shift in energy, she's spending some at-home hours completing poll worker training, and hopes to be called up on Nov. 3rd to serve her local Board of Elections. Either way, she's looking forward to working the polls in future years, and shifting her sense of the fall holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving to include the energy and efforts of Election Day, as well.
Taylor will be voting early and in person this Thursday, October 29th, to celebrate her birthday, because voting is a gift rather than a given in contemporary America and around the world. She will miss her regular polling place (as opposed to the early voting locations) because she always finds that voting days are a wonderful place to see neighbors in a community that is evenly split between Democrat and Republican voters. As Brené Brown says, "People are hard to hate close up."
Mary requested an absentee ballot, due to COVID, and dropped it off in person to her Board of Elections on the first day of early voting, this past Saturday. She arrived fifteen minutes after the polls had opened, and there was a huge line. But because she was using the absentee ballot drop box, she walked right in, popped her ballot in the slot, and was done.
Samantha is voting on Election Day. Just as she did during the mid-terms, she'll have her two-year-old and one-year-old children with her. They'll walk up the street to their polling place, masks on, wait as long as it takes, and watch as their mama proudly casts her vote. Sam used to worry about bringing little ones along, but it's their future she's voting for, and they deserve to be there as much as anyone else.
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We'll see you here next Tuesday, November 3rd, Election Day (or rather, Election Deadline) in our home country of the U.S.A.
In food, justice, and food justice,
Dor + Tay
photo by Alexa Romano for GFJ Stories
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tidbits...
resources on anti-racism, environmentalism and food culture AKA stuff we're reading / listening to / watching / noticing / thinking about / captivated by this Tuesday . . .
Our newest GFJ Story is here! We're thrilled and honored to feature the writing of Lani Kingston and the photography of Alexa Romano on Bean Voyage, a feminist non-profit social enterprise on a mission to eradicate the gender gap in farming communities.
"The need to remember often competes with the equally strong pressure to forget." - The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is the only global network of historic sites, museums, and memory initiatives that connects past struggles to today's movements for human rights.
In his new pamphlet, “Humility: A Humble, Anarchistic Inquiry,” Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig shares his two-year-long inquiry into how the gentle art of humility can bring out our humanness, elevate organizational effectiveness, enhance leadership, and enrich quality of life.
“Being white is not just a matter of identifying as white; it involves being treated as white, and that isn’t up to you. So, however you think of yourself, your whiteness is doing work in social life.” - Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Ethicist columnist for The New York Times Magazine
Goal setting for the next generation? Read Dor's contribution to the Empowering Education blog, a teacher-led Social Emotional Learning Curriculum for grades K-8.
got a tidbit? drop it here for us and we'll share it in next week's newsletter.
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