Thank you to our community of supporters who helped us have our biggest GiveBIG result ever!  On May 3rd and 4th, the Seattle Foundation, along with generous community partners, stretched each and every gift made to area nonprofits- including HFB. Your generous donations make our work possible. We look forward to keeping you posted on our results and new endeavors we are able to pursue this year, thanks to your support.

Earlier this year, during the visitation by South African students, HFB students had a new opportunity. Students from both sides of the exchange spent the day at Jack Straw Studio recording poetry, monologues, and songs. We are thrilled to present just a few pieces here.

Asithande:

Bongi:

Olivia:

Shadrak:

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You can see what we’ve been up to and all that we achieved last year by downloading our 2015 Annual Report!

HFB 2015 Annual Report (1)

GiveBIG 2016 is your chance to make an impact on our community’s youth development and social justice work. On Tuesday, May 3, the Seattle Foundation is stretching every gift made to area nonprofits through givebig.seattlefoundation.org, so your donation will go further. You can schedule a donation directly by visiting our page,  https://givebig.seattlefoundation.org/npo/hands-for-a-bridge as early as Monday, April 18.

Hands for a Bridge relies on the support of our community to make our work possible. With your donations, we are able to make our social justice and arts curriculum available to students regardless of their financial abilities. We are also able to invest more in the communities we visit in South Africa and Northern Ireland. This is only possible with sustained financial support for people like you.

On May 3, please consider making a donation to our work because your gift will go further. Funds from the Seattle Foundations stretch pool will be added to every gift made that day!

Please make your impact on May 3 and help us make this the BIGGEST GiveBIG day yet!

Over the course of the trip to South Africa, my cheek muscles hurt from smiling so much. You could say that it had to do with the weather–yes, I love the sun–but I think what was most significant was the wonderful people that surrounded me, taking me into their homes, and just accepting me for who I was. I met people whose beliefs I didn’t agree with, people who treated gender roles in a way that would’ve been unacceptable to me in an American setting. I met people who were from different backgrounds than me and were part of different cultures. And still, despite all of our differences, we were able to come together in one big Hands for a Bridge family. So, for me, that’s what I’ll remember most about South Africa. The family I found there, and the bonds I formed despite the oceans that separate us.

– Sophie Grosskopf

Northern Ireland is exactly how you would picture it. The cliffs are as gorgeous and jaw-dropping as the pictures, the fields and countrysides are as green as the shamrocks so commonly thought of, and the people are as confusing and delightful as any story has ever told. Let me begin by telling you this trip was physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. The bonds I formed with the kids at Oakgrove were immediate and intense and exciting. We instantly loved each other. This trip was eye-opening in ways I had never known. We got to meet and hear from people who had been in prison for bombings, men and women who had lost their loved ones to the IRA, bomb survivors, and activists. The information pouring over us was both overwhelming and confusing. We had learned about the Troubles before, but we didn’t learn just how real it was-and still is. I didn’t know how to feel. Am I allowed to cry over this story of a death of a child, when their father was sitting right next to me? There came a time during this trip when we had the opportunity to see a play centered on a young man who committed suicide. This not only shook me to my core, but devastated the group as a whole. To say we opened up to each other about our feelings would be an understatement. I have always been the type of person to keep my feelings hidden, and I wanted to change that. Overtime, I look back on each situation in NI differently. I find myself thinking differently about people and things and places. I know more than I ever did before, and somehow I don’t know enough. I don’t regret going on this trip-in fact it’s the opposite. I learned how to self-reflect in a way I had never done, and I’ll always remember the moments that made me realize things I had never known about myself. I was so worried before I left, that all my friends who went to SA would forget about me, but coming home I could only think about how exited I was to share with them the details of my adventure. I am so thankful to the amazing teachers who learned, adventured, and even cried with us. The other kids who went with me on this trip are some of the most incredible people I have ever met, and all I can say is this trip has been something I will always treasure and hold close to my heart.

Juno Spafford

I was raised to be colorblind.

One person is the same as another,

but being equal in one place is different than in another.

Distinct views separate cultures, not one

alike. Some are looked down upon

as people of lower class and value,

lesser humans. In the South,

my mom grew up with these views

so peculiar to me, to you, where it was normal

to call those people with dark skin names,

to stereotype, to segregate schools and homes,

drinking fountains and busses.

I remember walking into the Atlanta airport for the first time,

my eyes got wide—everyone working at the airport

was the same color,

black.  Confusion filled my mind.

Why is it like this? Are some jobs only for people of color?

Why is it different than home?

I wouldn’t get my answer until later,

and just accepted this is how it was, that this

was normal and would always be like this

when I came to visit, unchanging as the heat

and humidity of a Georgia summer.

I blew this whole moment to the curb,

an observation from my past

I wouldn’t come to terms with until I grew up.

I was raised to be colorblind, to see

the world from a new perspective,

to sit above the clouds and look down below,

to believe I was better than people who saw coloras what defined others, a memory buried.

Innocent or oblivious as a child,

I saw my visits as experiencing a new culture,

a different way to live, something for my relatives to complain about—whether it was the loud music of their Hispanic neighbors, or the need to shop for groceries during the week to avoid the weekend crowds of Blacks and Hispanics, their strange

voices filling the air like litter in store parking lots.

My mom left her home to escape this culture,

a way of life that seemed wrong,

out of place in this land of prejudice and discrimination.

I was raised to be colorblind.

Paying attention to race as a child was uncommon to me,

but older now and reflecting on the past,

I realized I noticed race,

not just as a simple observation or memory,

but as a way of life I did not like,

forcing myself to hold back my fight to visit family,

placing myself into this established culture,

peering in from the outside, never quite fitting in,

putting up an imaginary wall to resist,

to disagree politely, to close my mouth, to think better

of causing a scene. Having no right to control,

having no right to say what is good and bad,

what is true or false, accepting that it’s difficult

to change those with strong ideals and morals,

I believe now you should voice your opinion,

show how hate is not blind but blinds us

to the pain racism has caused, and then walk away,

into a world of color and light.

We come from different worlds—

assuming the worst, without learning the best.

– Arendje Louter