Communities That Care Coalition
Promoting health, well-being, and equity among young people in Franklin County and the North Quabbin
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/15/nx-s1-5539315/trymaine-lee-a-thousand-ways-to-die
When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trymaine Lee was 38, he suffered a sudden heart attack that nearly killed him. The incident made him reconsider the years he had spent reporting on the lives cut short by gun violence — and the stress it had put on his body.
There was a time when Joseph McNeil was heading toward a life of segregation. Separate bathrooms, beaches, theaters, schools, elevators, cemeteries. Separate was what he knew.
“I had experienced that, my parents had experienced that, their parents had experienced that,” McNeil said in 2014. “And in all likelihood, my off-spring, my children, would have faced the same issues.”
McNeil, and his three fellow students at North Carolina A&T, played an enormous role in heading off that “life of segregation” when they led a sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960.
According to his family, McNeil passed away Wednesday. He was 83 years old.
https://amst.umd.edu/directory/jessica-rucker
Jessica A. Rucker (she/her/youngin’) is a doctoral student in the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is studying Black radicalisms. Jessica is an instructor, a President’s Fellow, and a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. Jessica was previously a 2023-2025 graduate assistant at the Frederick Douglass Center for Leadership Through the Humanities, a 2023-2024 DISCO Graduate Scholar, a 2023 summer Tenant Organizing Fellow with DC Jobs with Justice, and a 2022-2023 Prentiss Charney Fellow. Prior to Jessica’s graduate work, she was a DC high school social studies teacher, department chair, and instructional coach, as well as a participant in the 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Teacher Institute at Duke University. She has also volunteered as a docent at both the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History. Jessica resides in her home city, the U.S. colony of Washington, D.C., on the unceded ancestral lands of the Nacotchtank, with her loving partner.
https://expeditionsubsahara.com/pages/the-art-of-basket-weaving
I’m Sofi, and I was born in Senegal, West Africa, to the Wolof tribe. Part of the Jolof empire that dominated the 14th -16th centuries, the Wolof became a powerful force and sought after for their trade commodities, but primarily for gold. Even today, Wolof is the primary ethnic group in Senegal.
In our tribe, weaving is passed down generationally, from grandmothers and mothers to daughters and granddaughters. Girls are taught to weave from a very young age and this skill is used throughout our lives. Not only do women create useful items for their families and to sell, but the art of basket weaving is a communal activity women enjoy in the company of others.
https://teachforall.org/africa-leadership/james-kassaga-arinaitwe
Prior to co-founding Teach For Uganda, CEO James Kassaga Arinaitwe gained eight years of international development experience working with The Carter Center in the United States, the non-profit organization founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He was also a 2012-13 Global Health Corps Fellow in New York, and a School Partnerships Manager at Educate! In 2014, James was selected as an Acumen Global Fellow, and spent a year in India working with a social enterprise providing education and livelihood skills to two million underserved youth. James is an Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow, and his op-eds on ethical and effective development solutions have been featured in Al Jazeera, NPR, Devex, The Guardian, and The New York Times. He graduated with a Masters of Public Health and Policy from Florida State University and a Masters in Sustainable Development and International Policy from the SIT Graduate Institute in Washington, D.C.
https://www.webdbmf.org/jeffrey.alan.peck.html
Jeffrey Alan Peck is the great-grandson of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois. Jeffrey continues Dr. Du Bois’ legacy by engaging in socio-political discourse, working closely with non-profit organizations that are involved in racial justice, equity, and empowerment, being an active member of Bishop James Dixon’s “Community of Faith” Church, and annually commemorating Dr. Du Bois’ memory in Great Barrington, Massachusetts in February of each year. Jeffrey is a Houston native, who aspires to increase awareness and affinity for Dr. Du Bois throughout the South and within ignored black communities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biddy_Mason
Biddy Mason (August 15, 1818 – January 15, 1891) was an African-American nurse and a Californian real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist. She was one of the founders of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church[1] in Los Angeles, California. Enslaved upon birth, she developed a variety of skills and developed knowledge of medicine, child care, and livestock care. A California court granted freedom to her and her three daughters in 1856.
https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/latorial_faison
LATORIAL FAISON is the author of Nursery Rhymes in Black (University of Alaska Press, June 2025), Mother to Son (2017), Amazon Kindle best-sellers, LOVE POEMS, 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History Volumes 1-3, flesh, I AM WOMAN, Secrets of My Soul, Immaculate Perceptions, children’s books, 100 Poems You Can Write and Kendall’s Golf Lesson. Faison’s work has been accepted for publication by Callaloo, AUNT CHLOE, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, Artemis Journal, RHINO, Prairie Schooner, PENUMBRA, West Trestle Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Stonecoast Review, Typishly Literary Magazine, About Place Journal, Typehouse, Southern Poetry Anthology, Kalyani Magazine, Black Girl Seeks, The Chattahoochee Review, Virginia’s Best Emerging Poets, Blackberry, Solstice Literary Magazine, and Mandala Journal.
Tsedaye Makonnen is an interdisciplinary artist-curator and cultural producer. Tsedaye’s practice is driven by Black feminist theory, firsthand site-specific research, and ethical social practice techniques, which become solo and collaborative site sensitive performances, objects, installations, and films. Her studio primarily focuses on intersectional feminism, reproductive health and migration. Tsedaye’s personal history is as a mother, the daughter of Ethiopian immigrants, a doula and a sanctuary builder.