An Opportunity to Engage and Organize: Supporting Chainbreaker’s Equity Summer. We are excited to be giving you an opportunity to do something positive, something participatory, something community-driven. We are working with a tremendous group of partners : Chainbreaker, Somos Un Pueblo Unido, Earth Care, New Energy Economy, Indivisible, and Democratic Socialists of America. The video at the bottom of this page is of Tomas Rivera, Chainbreaker, who lays out in vivid detail just exactly how divided our city is by race and wealth. It is very motivating. It will tell you all you need to know about why Equity Summer is so important and why we need you to get involved. And if you want to get involved, just write to volunteer4retake@gmail.com and tell us what you want to do.

Each partner has its own constituency, its own outreach, engagement, and organizing strategies. Each has an impact. Imagine what we can accomplish together! Together we will support Chainbreaker’s Equity Summer: we will organize and educate ourselves on the causes of and solutions to inequity and build a powerful base that is ready to advocate for progressive candidates in Santa Fe and to participate in the City’s budget process. We will build this base of power through a variety of outreach and education strategies:

• block-by-block, neighborhood-by-neighborhood community canvassing and grassroots community organizing;
• panels and town halls focused on various aspects of equity, city policy, city budgeting;
• research on issues related to social, economic, and racial justice, identifying and discussing models of urban policies that have been effective in promoting justice, click here on our Activist Research Team.
• house parties that will serve to educate our friends and neighbors about gentrification and how public policy decisions impact our most impoverished Santa Fe neighborhoods every day.

This engagement, education, and activism process is called Community Conversations, and the best part of this process is that we are not entering it with the intent of pushing a specific agenda on anyone.  The first phase of Community Conversations will begin with something we have done precious little of in the past two years: listening. We will listen to our neighbor’s aspirations and fears to learn what they care about and are willing to do for their community.

The second phase  will include more canvassing, community meetings, house parties, and town halls, presenting programs and policies that will advance the aspirations identified in Phase I. Through a series of meetings, Retake and our partners will work with the community to create a clear set of priorities founded on a vision of equity in Santa Fe.

Our overarching goal is to create a citywide power base of well-informed residents who are firmly committed to equity and are committed to working with our elected officials to make equity the lens through which they make ALL policy and budget decisions. Individual policies are band-aids. A systemic solution is required, and finding the elements to this systemic approach will be our journey. Click here for information on how you can get involved, but watch the video below first. It will inspire you.