Finding ways to resist the executive orders and public announcements coming fast and heavy can be hard. Let’s make it easier.
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We’re in week six of One Small Thing. Just days after the transition of power, and a special report saying there was enough evidence to convict our new leader of trying to overturn a legitimate election had he not been elected president, we need to focus our energies not on the things we cannot change, but on the small things we can. Here is a daily list of things you can do to make a difference.
1. Sign up for StoryGraph.
StoryGraph is an amazing alternative to Goodreads, which is owned by Jeff Bezos. The app was developed and is owned by Nadia Odunayo. It is a fully featured, Amazon-free book tracking experience, and so far, I love it. I can gather a to-read list, mark the books I’m currently reading, add friends and see what they’re up to, leave extensive reviews, and I can rate books with half and quarter stars, too. If a book is 4.5 stars in my mind, I don’t have to choose between 4 stars and 5 stars!
Not to mention, it provides statistics in graphic form, like pie charts, breaking your books up by mood, pace, and number of pages; and bar graphs showing genre and ratings. You can set up reading goals — by the book, by the page, or by the hour. You can join community challenges. It helps you find books that are a good fit for you. There are content warnings and generated book recommendations based on what you’ve already read and rated, and on what you say you prefer. You can organize your reads with tags and lists, and share those with friends. Or for a private experience, there is a reading journal for you to mark down thoughts and notes as you go through.
The more people on it, the more robust the system becomes. So, I made the switch, and you should consider doing so, too. Don’t let your Goodreads history stop you: you can import your data from there. It takes just 10 minutes to set up, and as many minutes as you want to explore.
2. Fill out Everytown for Gun Safety’s survey.
Gun control will remain a large issue in this country, and keeping our children and residents safe from gun violence is paramount. Everytown is an organization I know and trust, but I won’t lie, this particular organization makes it a little more difficult to donate in good faith because they have you jump through some hoops. First, you fill out a survey and then you can choose to donate or not. I chose to donate, but they keep wanting more information, so be careful. You have to be vigilant to keep pressing one-time donation and not get irritated that they ask you several times to donate monthly and seem almost to try to trick you into doing so. At the last screen, you have already donated, so don’t pick a new number to donate again.
Like I said, I do admire what they do in working for gun control and I don’t entirely blame them for these less than transparent fundraising tactics, but it took me about 10 minutes to donate the amount I wanted, which was $26.50 plus a $3 tip. You can find the survey and donation page here.
3. Leave a review for a local medical facility, nonprofit, or small business.
When my daughter came down with strep throat on a weekend when our doctor’s office was closed, I took her to a small urgent care facility that caters to people in our community no matter their income. The doctor was caring and patient. He got us in and out in just about an hour. I’ve been going there for years, but somehow the facility only has a 3.5-star rating on Google. So, I left a 5-star review for them.
These places need good word of mouth for their business to survive, and marginalized communities need to hear about the services that are available to them so that they can benefit. Word of mouth has a lot of power. If you have community organizations or local businesses you appreciate, be sure to leave them a review. It’s not much extra time (literally took me five minutes) and can really help these important services survive.
4. Attend a free anti-harassment training
Last week, I signed up for a bystander intervention training from Right to Be, an organization that holds several free trainings a month on various resistance tactics and information. This particular training went over what you can and should do if you see a marginalized person or group being bullied or harassed online. So often, someone speaks their truth in an online setting, and they find themselves completely dogpiled in the comments. Even worse, there are online trolls, alt-right figures, and men’s rights advocates who will take that harassment to another level, following people from platform to platform, personally messaging them nonstop, doxxing them, threatening them or worse. And just as often, we freeze, unsure of what to do or how to help. Perhaps afraid of drawing the vitriol to ourselves.
The training gave me invaluable and varied strategies to try when this happens in my spaces. I can’t do it justice here, so make sure you sign up for one of these yourself. The main categories of reactions they discuss are the five Ds: distract, delegate, document, delay, and direct. They’ll show you how to use each of them in different situations to help another person in distress. Signing up here takes just a moment, and the training takes one hour.
5. Donate to a border nonprofit like Al Otro Lado.
I donated $25 to Al Otro Lado, an organization that is well vetted for helping migrants, based in Southern California. The incoming administration is going to terrorize migrants. The more resources these well-established aid groups have ahead of time, the better. There are different funds your money can go to. I chose migrant solidarity, but there is one for language barrier, one for jail bond, and several others. It took just a few minutes. Click here for information.
6. Give blood.
Most people think of the Red Cross for this, but in my area, the one and only supplier of blood to all our hospital systems and our Veterans Affairs branch is LifeSouth. After the tragedy that happened in New Orleans on New Year’s Day — when a man drove through a crowd of people, killing some and injuring many more — our local blood bank supplies went to Louisiana to help meet emergency demand. This left my local community low on stock, so I gave blood.
This is an easy thing almost anyone can do at any time. Blood is always needed, and many times the organizations will actually give you something or even pay you to help out. It takes about a half an hour. Just look up blood donation centers in your area.
7. Buy Penzeys Spices.
My mom’s birthday just passed, so I bought her a sampler pack of “resist” spices from Penzeys Spices. A lot of businesses get “political” to sell more products, but Penzeys has been solidly progressive from 2017 on, at least. Their current promotion is that you order one spice sampler for about $50 and they send one for free to someone in need. I had to get a gift anyway, so this was a perfect choice. Find it here.
Every day you manage to do something to improve someone’s life is a day the world got just a little better. Sussing out what to do can be more mentally taxing than actually doing the good deed, so use these lists, share them around if you want. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to help people. See you next week.
Past weeks of “One Small Thing” can be found here.
