We had prepared to share our inaugural, light-hearted Lot Sixteen blog post on Monday.
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It would have highlighted our new “work from home” routines while helping to put some faces to the names of our firm’s growing employee roster. Instead, this week brought historic protests unfolding in our own communities. With varying reports of the widespread actions being taken in response to tragedy, headlines everywhere detailed the positive and negative consequences of our nation’s social unrest.
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We had been right that Monday would be a day for putting faces to names, but we quickly learned that the names that needed our attention the most were those that have been cemented in our history behind a hashtag — the names of the people most recently added to the growing list of Black Americans killed by police.
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When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can’t sugarcoat it, you have to take a stand and say, ‘This is not right.’
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Claudette Colvin
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As a team of professionals and a ‘work family’, we have spent much of this week grappling with current events. From hosting All Staff calls to discuss what’s happening in our world and sharing resources with one another to help us think critically about our firm’s diversity and inclusion efforts to leading conversations in our own circles of friends and family, we’ve learned a lot this week about the experiences of our fellow Americans simply by listening. We heard loud and clear that we have a lot more to learn and plenty more work we can do to ensure we are on the right side of history. And to put it simply — we’re on it.
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From now on, we are keeping those names and faces at the forefront of our minds as we strive to be positive forces of change. We will continue to adapt our internal culture, conversations and operations to meet the challenges of our time so that we can facilitate solutions for the future. Starting with our first blog post, we’d like to demonstrate our firm’s commitment to promoting racial justice by cutting our chit chat short so as to use this platform to amplify the inspiring work of local nonprofits and businesses that are making a difference and could use your support.
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Below you’ll find a list of local organizations that are paving the way for positive change in the DMV and beyond. We hope that you will learn more about these important changemakers and consider the ways you can help support their work.
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Local Nonprofits & Organizations
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• Serve Your City DC | @ServeYourCityDC
• Pathways to Housing DC | @PathwaysDC
• Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) | @FAMMFoundation
• Operation Understanding DC | @OU_DC
• DC Doors | @DC_DOORS
• Father McKenna Center DC | @thefathermckennacenter