Where body meets heart

To Our Beloved Community,

This week, Bay Area county public health departments announced they will be extending the shelter-in-place order through the end of May .

I think a lot of us had been holding out hope that this COVID-19 trial would pass soon and we could get on with our normal lives – and our normal programming. But what’s becoming clear is that the end of this virus isn’t going to look like a single before/after moment, and that whatever lies beyond this will be a new kind of normal.

Wherever that is, OFC will continue to provide everything we can to everyone we can, and to support our families not in the places we’re accustomed or even necessarily funded to, but in the places they tell us they need support. And to rest as we’re able.

I want to emphasize that last part. Some of us have already been sick. Some of us might get sick. This virus has likely already taken someone from every person reading this, whether you’re an OFC staffer, an intern, a board member, a community member, a donor, a funding partner, or a colleague. In my house, we have an altar with two bowls on it – one for those who are sick, and one for those who we’ve lost. They’re both filling up.

What defines queer community is the most human parts of us – the parts where we love, and where we suffer, and where body meets heart. We at OFC are proud to be part of that community, and we’re not ashamed to say we’re feeling those parts just as acutely as any of you reading this. There are days that bleed together and nights that seem like they’ll never end. There are more than a few moments when it just hurts all over. None of this feels real. None of this is fair.

Queer community is making the decision to take care of each other anyway.

We are living through unprecedented times. And we’ve lived through unprecedented times before. Queer people know how to take care of each other when our leaders won’t, and we know how to invent new kinds of support out of thin air, and we know how to redefine what it means to raise a child in a world not built for them, and we know what it means to hold each other up through the unimaginable, and we have a hell of a lot to teach the world about love.

These are the moments we find out what family looks like.

To me, what it looks like is what you all have been doing since March 5 – the last day we laid eyes on the families we serve, and the first day our staff and board set out to redefine what it means to serve. Watching the OFC community show up, every day, in the minutes and hours and nap times when you’re able, keeps reminding me how we’re going to get through this – as a family.

Tonight, when the news feels extra heavy, I hope it can remind you too. And then I hope you get some rest.

Yours as ever,

Sam Ames, Esq., JD, MTS

Interim Executive Director

P.S. All nonprofits are facing existential economic threats right now. In California, 40% of small entities have had to cut jobs and nearly half have closed or are planning to close within the next few months. I’m proud to say that OFC has managed to keep supporting our staff and serving our community throughout this crisis, but if we’re going to keep weathering this storm we need your help more than we ever have. Big or small, thank you for supporting in any way you can.