A Catalyst That Fights Hunger and Fear

This Sunday afternoon Westerbeke Ranch hosted an annual meeting for a small non-profit fund working in Sonoma Valley called Catalyst (Sonoma Valley Catalyst Fund). Their mission is to mobilize philanthropic support to help existing non-profit services find and serve people in need, particularly those who have trouble accessing services, things like food, medical attention and legal assistance for immigrants. You might think of them as a meta-non-profit, working to fill the gaps and help find efficiencies, and eliminate redundancies, among local social support services. They conduct research and provide financial support through a modest grants program.

The meeting was to review Catalyst projects over the past year and to outline expectations for the future, especially given the declining prospects for the most vulnerable people, the elderly, the poor, and non-citizens, due to cuts in government social services, destructive economic policies, and deliberately cruel and incoherent enforcement by ICE among immigrant populations. This was a wake-up call to say that hunger and fear are on the rise, and the demand for services is surely rising dramatically as well, while resources are quickly drying up, and that Catalyst is there ready to do it’s part in taking up the slack.

I can already see your eyes rolling back, your head drooping, you’re ready to doze off. We’ve heard it all before. I thought that’s how it would be. I felt a little guilty about chugging down the free wine and nosh before the meeting began, as I figured I’d just slip out during a break. I couldn’t stomach pretending to be a donor, and we’d provided and hosted the venue, so that was enough. Right?

Well, it wasn’t quite like that. First, the panel of four ladies who started the discussion spoke crisply and intelligently about their work for Catalyst, blessedly brief in their descriptions and clear about the troubling changes on the horizon without dwelling for a second in scolding the politicians responsible or in playing up the victim role. This is a quickly developing emergency for which the community needs to be preparing. They cited their facts, the problems they’d discovered and solutions they’d found, the areas they expect to become acute. These were very smart, capable people working to solve human problems. It was inspiring.

And the thing about this being a small private non-profit, working outside of the constraints and frustrations of government process and within such a small venue, Sonoma Valley - where we know people affected and the neighborhoods they live in - it made this personal. Catalyst, and the non-profit services around the valley are having an impact in our neighbors’ lives. And the integrity and passion of these people working hard to alleviate suffering in our village was so admirable and inspiring, it made me want to join in. When it’s this close to home, it’s personal, and we can do something.

Catalyst, of course, isn’t the only organization doing these kinds of work. But their demonstration of brave, practical compassion felt like a balm, an antidote to the chronic degradation of watching this new regime of cruelty and senseless destruction play out. If you find yourself feeling confused and powerless as the Trump regime adopts postures of indifference to human suffering and other slights to your humanity, you could hardly do better than to volunteer some time and money to counter their ugly narrative.

And one last thing. Everyone who spoke at the meeting mentioned how scary these coming changes are, how much fear people are feeling amid the uncertainty and wanton cruelty. For immigrants living in our valley, legal or not, it is almost impossible to imagine the kind of terror these policies are stirring up. And yet for everyone, we must recognize that it is the Trump Administration’s intention to scare us. It is the key to their strategy, to paralyze us with fear over their power to ruin our lives. And so we must be brave! To refuse to succumb to their fear-mongering becomes a powerful act of resistance, to model fearlessness in the face of danger inspires us all to stay focused. And perhaps most important, our fearlessness refutes the craven beliefs that drive these monsters to do their worst.

We can’t prevent them from doing their worst. But we must counter them with our best.