With the recent deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police, I was left questioning what I could do to fight against racism. During my bi-weekly meeting with Marie Benner-Rhoades, I mentioned how I would be attending an Embrace Race webinar called "How do I make sure I'm not raising the next 'Amy Cooper'?" The guest speaker was Jennifer Harvey, who is a social activist, professor, and author. Marie had read Harvey’s book Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America and recommended it to me. We thought the book had useful information that parents, educators, and other community members could use to raise race conscious kids. So, we reached out to our Racial Justice Organizers Grace Cook-Huffman and Tamera Shaw and Youth and Young Adult Assistant Laura Hay to develop a webinar series that uses Harvey’s book as a guide.

For the webinar series, we will be meeting every Thursday at 8 PM ET starting on July 23rd through August 13th.Topics will include how parents and teachers can address race, the myth of color-blindness, the role of racial scripts, and the future of racial justice. Even though the book Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey will be used to guide the discussions, reading the book is not required. This webinar is a space for all community members to join in conversations about raising all kids to be race conscious, not just for people raising white kids.

In each session, participants can expect to share their personal experiences in the larger group and in breakout pairs, have open conversations about the role of parents, teachers, and other community members in raising race conscious kids, and receive resources and action steps for raising race conscious kids. If you are interested in attending a webinar session, please register here https://www.onearthpeace.org/webinar_series_raising_race_conscious_kids. Contact me at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Immigration is a topic that should be discussed with children. Even though it can be uncomfortable for some parents to talk about this topic, it is important to explain what it means to be an immigrant and the difficulties they may face. Doing so will help children understand what people go through and will make them more empathetic towards others. A simple way parents can bring up the topic of immigration is by reading a book. Here are a few own voice children’s books about immigrants that detail their experiences:

On Earth Peace will be holding a four-week webinar series on how to raise race-conscious kids. Topics will include how parents and teachers can teach kids about race, the role of racial scripts, and the future of racial justice. The book Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children In A Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey will be used to guide the discussions, however, reading the book is not required. We will be meeting every Thursday at 8 PM ET starting on July 23rd through August 13th.

If you are interested in attending, please click here to complete the registration form.

Albert works as our Development Support Intern at OEP! “I help build and redesign the OEP donation page website. I also help build the Impact Leaders Project, which displays any leader who has impacted OEP in the past (interns, anyone else).” Albert has been spending most of his time at OEP creating a new donation page that should be launching soon! “Right now, we are getting closer to the soft launch for the OEP Leaders Impact and Donation page, so I am really excited to see how it all holds up. It should be an exciting thing to see.” With his work in the backend of OEP, Albert finds joy in using the skills he has been honing for years. “The best part about working with OEP is being able to use some of the skills I have and some of the skills I have learned and to be able to apply those skills into day to day life. Like for example, using my communication skills to talk to people, or my computer science skills to create pictures for Facebook.” Albert’s work with OEP is intensive and exciting for him, making his projects a place of pride in his life. “Outside of OEP, I just take breaks and do some exercise, probably look at my school website and look around to see what I can read about; anything interesting like news or academics. I guess you could say playing video games is a hobby of mine too.” 

With all the support behind-the-scenes that Albert provides to OEP, we can without a doubt say that Albert has made OEP a better and stronger community through his dedication and support. Thank you Albert for keeping OEP running proud and strong! 

Song and Story Fest has been moved online this year! Though we won't have our usual campfires and sing-a-longs in person, webinars and ZOOM gatherings will span between July 3rd and 10th to give everyone the sense of community they have been missing. To kick off everything we’ll gather, do a little visiting, tell some jokes, explore and embody a scripture for the evening, and then let some of our leaders offer songs and stories in an intergenerational worship program. The whole evening will last about 90 minutes on July 3rd, from 8:00 PM Eastern time until about 9:30.

The following days will have workshops/sharing/discussion offerings! On Sunday, rewriting the history of the Church of the Brethren, and on Monday, white people for racial justice.  In addition, on Thursday we will have sharing circles for women and men (separate ZOOM links).

Contact Ken Kline Smeltzer at [email protected] to identify yourself and obtain the ZOOM links for these events.

Scheduled Events for 2020 Song & Story Fest

Friday, July 3, 8:00 PM Eastern time: “Song & Story Fest – Built for Such a Time as This” 

• Discussions of Scripture: Amos 5:22-24 and Esther 4:12-14
• Leaders: Mike Stern, Jim Lehman, Bill Jolliff

Sunday, July 5, Workshop, 8:00 PM  Eastern time: "A People's History of the Church of the Brethren: an exercise in collective memory and narrative construction.”

• Together we will "re-member" the social/cultural history of our church to "dis-cover" how we became complicit in our own acculturation and demise.”
• Debbie Eisenbise

Monday, July 6, Workshop, 8:00 PM  Eastern time: “If black lives matter to white people, what should white people be doing?”

• Jonathan Hunter and Bonnie Kline Smeltzer will convene this sharing and discussion time, focusing on racial inequality, justice, and what we can do about it. 

Tuesday, July 7, 8:00PM Eastern Time: “Christmas in July – Another Way of Living?” 

• Discussions of Scripture: Mark 5:38-48
• Leaders: Jonathan Hunter, Rhonda and Greg Baker, Others?

Thursday, July 9, 8:00 PM Eastern Time: “Men’s Sharing Circle”, “Women’s Sharing Circle” – separate ZOOM links 

• Conveners: Jim Lehman, Ken Kline Smeltzer for Men; Carrie and Kathy Fry-Miller for Women

Friday, July 10, 8:00 PM Eastern Time: “Envisioning and Acting for Social Change” 

• Discussions of Scripture: Joel 2:28-29, and Jeremiah 29:11-14
• Leaders: Jim Lehman, Peg Lehman, Louise Brodie, Debbie Eisenbise, more…