In 2015, I opened a non-profit called Hatch Community with the mission to disrupt cycles of poverty and nurture parent-child relationships. We wanted to transform generations through economic opportunity, birth and parenting education, and a community of support for and by young parents. It was a big, heart driven mission, with a deep belief in conscious community building and shared resources. Through vocational training and peer support we provided services to all parents under 25 with a specific focus on foster youth, transitional youth, LGBTQAI+ and sexually exploited youth. Our focus was on these populations because they are the most difficult to structure belonging around because they are rightfully cautious with their trust. The typical systems of support the average person leans on fell through for them - biological family, extended family, chosen family, their community and societal systems. My underlying belief and hope was that if we could build structures of belonging and care for the most betrayed populations in our society then by including them we could begin to learn to build togetherness for all of us. By inviting in all the people (and parts of ourselves) that we try to discard so that we can fit into a mold of society that no longer works for any of us we could create a society that works for ALL of us.
How we built structures of belonging, where the feeling of it lasts to this day in the heart of everyone involved:
Our training programs taught young people how to care for themselves and be accountable to their actions to care for others. We developed layers of support by providing a peer mentor program on top of a peer support program.
Our Educators and Staff were walking their talk by actually doing the work they were teaching, while also learning to care for themselves so they could care for others better.
We had consistent weekly meetings where we learned to bridge differences, to broaden perspectives by holding other peoples experiences, and celebrated one another’s successes.
We invited and had the hard conversations. We built trust and offered repair when trust was broken.
We invited every part of every person and learned to care for the part and the person better every time.
We co-created a learning environment that was focused on curiosity and brought in outside experts to better understand challenges the group was facing: including talking about isms, phobias, microaggressions and oppression. Both individuals and the group as a whole showed us where we needed more attention to move forward.
We educated the professionals who came in with a culture that questioned everyone, regardless of their status, while also honoring their wisdom.
The program was wildly successful and wee grew fast with minimal resources. We paved new ways for the populations we served and the birth and parenting communities in the Bay area. The contract we held with Alameda County is now a paid part of Medical. We showed other organizations how to build and grow in community. We made mistakes. We learned from them. We grew from them, together.
At the start of 2020 the organization closed, breaking down into parts and giving graduates the pieces to carry on in their individual work and hearts. I am still in awe of what each of them created inside themselves, in their communities and in the world.
We need more programs, more communities, more spaces that invite all of us and every part of us to the table, creating structure for belonging and repair.
I would love to share with you what I have learned and also learn from you, in supporting you to create these structures in your partnerships, your family, your chosen family, your communities and your organizations or businesses. We need to come together, in a new way, with our whole selves, so that what feels like the end times are actually new beginnings.