Promoting CommUNITY at the Eugene Family YMCA
Overview
This inspiring educational series invites us to explore ways to build awareness, compassion and kindness in our everyday lives. Each month centers around a new theme, offering opportunities to connect beyond our differences, foster meaningful relationships, and grow as better neighbors and community members. We will explore the monthly themes in two meetings per month, taking guidance from:
Guest Speakers. We'll hear from experts who bring fresh insights on each month’s theme, helping us better understand and support one another.
Book Clubs. We'll dive into curated reads tied to the monthly topic, sparking thought-provoking and heartfelt conversations. Participants must purchase their own copies of the books; if this cost is a barrier and library copies aren't available, please reach out to Cass Averill.
Together, let’s gain the skills to be active allies and create a stronger, more unified community. Join us and be part of something meaningful!
Know a teenager who might be interested in this offering? We are also hosting a parallel series for middle- and high-schoolers!
Timeline
Info session on Tuesday, Jan. 28, from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. in the Kalapuya Community Room—drop-in only, no registration needed!
Semester 1 will take place from February through May 2025
Semester 2 will take place from September through November 2025
Themes
February: Understanding Racial Equity (details below)
March: Gender Equity and Empowerment
April: Disability Awareness and Advocacy
May: Ageism and Age Discrimination Awareness
September: The History and Experience of Refugees and Immigrants in America
October: LGBTQ+ Inclusion
November: Interfaith Dialogue and Religious Inclusion
Non-Y members are welcome to attend any or all of these sessions, but will need to sign up for a free Community Membership in order to register.
Upcoming Meetings
Semester 1, Theme 1: Understanding Racial Equity
Join us as we talk about what racism really is—how it shows up in everyday life and in bigger systems. We’ll explore things like implicit bias and microaggressions, how they affect people, and simple ways we can all help make a difference. We’ll also break down the difference between cultural appropriation and appreciation, and how we can better respect and honor different cultures.
Speaker Meeting
DATE: Tuesday, Feb. 11, 1 to 3 p.m. in the Kalapuya Community Room- SPEAKER: Mo Young, Inclusion and Belonging Consultant; Lane County’s Community Partnership Supervisor
Mo is a heart-centered, equity-focused advocate devoted to radically transforming spaces and systems that have historically disenfranchised intentionally marginalized groups. In her professional life, Mo works inside of formal systems to transform the nexus of power, uplift, center, and celebrate narratives from folks at the margin. In her community work, Mo is often raising funds, sharing knowledge and resources, organizing donation drives, and helping people find ways to support one another within the capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal system that we exist in. In her free time, you can find Mo reading, dancing, traveling, finding hats that her cats will tolerate wearing, and spending as much time with her 14-year-old as she is able and allowed to.
Book Club Meeting
DATE: Friday, Feb. 28, 1 to 2:30 p.m. in the Kalapuya Community Room- BOOK*: The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee
*Tsunami Books has generously partnered with the Y to offer a 20% discount to the first 10 customers who purchase The Sum of Us from them! Just mention the YMCA book club when you check out.
Summary: Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy—and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for white people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all. But how did this happen? And is there a way out?
McGhee embarks on a deeply personal journey across the country from Maine to Mississippi to California, tallying what we lose when we buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. Along the way, she meets white people who confide in her about losing their homes, their dreams, and their shot at better jobs to the toxic mix of American racism and greed. This is the story of how public goods in this country—from parks and pools to functioning schools—have become private luxuries; of how unions collapsed, wages stagnated, and inequality increased; and of how this country, unique among the world’s advanced economies, has thwarted universal healthcare.
But in unlikely places of worship and work, McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply can’t do on our own. The Sum of Us is not only a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here but also a heartfelt message, delivered with startling empathy, from a black woman to a multiracial America. It leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than a zero-sum game.
