An Update on Understanding Racial Justice
First, speaking of our Farm Club cohort – can you please help us spread the word to any Traverse City, MI area friends who might be interested in joining us for this transformative five-week journey? We will be meeting Monday evenings beginning next Monday from 5:30-7:30pm at the beautiful Farm Club located at 10051 South Lake Leelanau Drive, Traverse City. This cohort will be facilitated by Lucy Waechter Webb and Tess Waechter Smith. Sliding scale and scholarship seats are still available.
We want to take a moment to acknowledge the contributions of Lucy Waechter Webb and Tess Waechter Smith, as they step down from the URJ team to pursue their own coaching and somatics work with an emphasis on supporting people in their embodied antiracist journeys. Tess and Lucy have been an integral part of our team in recent years as facilitators and supporters. As URJ organizers, they helped grow our URJ alumni community past 300 strong. We are so grateful for all of their time, talent, and commitment that they have invested in our community and are excited to see what comes next for them. You can follow both Lucy and Tess on Instagram and we will share any updates on their offerings as we have them. The upcoming Farm Club URJ cohort is the last cohort they both are scheduled to facilitate.
URJ co-creators Simon Wolff, Seth Bernard, and Holly T. Bird also continue their work for racial justice through various offerings. Simon offers one-to-one and small group opportunities for somatic, ancestral, and cultural healing work. Seth continues on staff at Title Track as Co-Executive Director which includes providing leadership for our Water Protector’s Training Camp and Collaborative Songwriting for Collective Liberation programs as well as hosting our State of Water podcast. Holly continues to serve on staff at Title Track as Co-Executive Director providing leadership for programs including Water Protector’s Training Camp, hosting Eminazhichiget, and being one of our frequent BIPOC presenters for week 3 of URJ.
Gini von Courter, Chris Good, and Wendy von Courter will serve as our core URJ facilitation team as we move forward beyond our upcoming Farm Club cohort. All three have brought extensive racial justice and facilitation experience into our community, were trained in our URJ train-the-trainer program facilitated by Simon Wolff and Kara Bender, and have been valuable members of our URJ team through many recent cohorts. You can learn more about Gini, Chris, and Wendy on our URJ website page. Shoutout to the whole Title Track staff family who provide so much admin and organizational support for this program including Jenny Jones, Mae Beale, Bree Carscadden, and Carmelitta Tiffany.
Stay tuned for more 2024 URJ cohorts to be announced in the near future as well as updates on our BIPOC-centered programming including the exciting new podcast Eminazhichiget, which will launch later this winter and feature Anishinaabek leaders from across the Great Lakes region who are doing good works in their communities.
