An Urgent Letter From The FounderI want to start this new year with heart-filled gratitude. I want to thank you, loyal reader of AwareNow, for your ongoing commitment and support as we continue to raise awareness and promote positive social impact. I also wanted to share my heart with you... Nearly one year ago, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, after losing vision in my right eye. While this loss slowed me, it didn't stop me. Nothing can, not even MS. In fact, I'm only motivated to do more. With one good eye, a determined mind, and a strong heart, I continue to work with Jack to raise awareness for causes with the support of our columnists, ambassadors, advisors, and the entire Awareness Tribe. Faithful supporters like you are the only reason Awareness Ties' voice has been able to reach millions of readers each month. That's why I am sending you this letter today. Last year, our team worked tirelessly to support our friends, sponsors, and partners' visions and promote social awareness. We were able to sustain our social impact platform partially with our own personal funds, but not fully. Therefore, we have an urgent need to raise $10,000. I want to make a simple and clear donation request to help us reach this goal. Please consider supporting Awareness Ties with a donation of any amount. Your support is the key to helping Awareness Ties remain focused on the great work that we do. If you wish to contribute, you can do so by visiting the 'donate' link below. We all have at least one cause we support. No matter what that is, there is one cause that it tied to them all together - 'the human cause'. Each and every one of us is tied together by the human cause that tethers us with that universal thread of empathy. Empathy is best served through stories. All that said, we believe in the power of 'one'. One story and one person can make a difference... so can one donation. Thank you so much. I look forward to a successful new year with you, as we continue to raise awareness one story at a time.
this moment
i own it this is my style declared without denial my ideal of what's real i feel it can't peel it off excuse me while i cough and say again, my friend i own this moment and refuse atonement for right or wrong to me it belongs for better, for worse my blessing, my curse i would not take it back not take another track i won't live with regret although, please know i don't forget and you can more than bet this moment is all you're ever guaranteed thoughts of tomorrow tend to mislead so take this moment and own it. - allie merrick mcguire As she raises the bar on the field, AJ is raising awareness for causes..We’re excited to be teaming up with A.J. Andrews, Athletes Unlimited and Give Lively as a non-profit beneficiary partner of Athlete Causes. Athletes Unlimited has created a new model of professional sports where Athletes are the owners, individual players are the champions of team sports and fans are engaged like never before. As part of its mission to develop athletes as civic leaders and elevate them as role models for the next generation of athletes and fans, Athletes Unlimited has launched 'Athlete Causes' in partnership with Give Lively and the Give Lively Foundation. This initiative allows athletes to play their season in part for the benefit of the non-profit organization of their choice, and we’re thrilled that A.J. Andrews has selected Awareness Ties. At the end of the season, the Give Lively Foundation will make a grant equal to 50% of the athlete’s end-of-season bonus to the non-profit. In addition to the end-of-season grant A.J. Andrews will be earning for our organization from their play on the field, you as a fan can also get involved by:
Make sure you cheer on A.J. this season as she’ll be playing for Awareness Ties! You can find out where to watch games via Athletes Unlimited’s national broadcast schedule here.
LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN
By: Langston Hughes Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. (There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed! I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years. Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become. O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home-- For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free." The free? Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay-- Except the dream that's almost dead today. O, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- And yet must be—the land where every man is free. The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America! O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!
"Let America Be America Again" is a poem written in 1935 by American poet Langston Hughes. It was originally published in the July 1936 issue of Esquire Magazine. The poem was republished in the 1937 issue of Kansas Magazine and was revised and included in a small collection of Langston Hughes poems entitled A New Song, published by the International Workers Order in 1938.[1][2]
The poem speaks of the American dream that never existed for the lower-class American and the freedom and equality that every immigrant hoped for but never received. In his poem, Hughes represents not only African Americans, but other economically disadvantaged and minority groups as well. Besides criticizing the unfair life in America, the poem conveys a sense of hope that the American Dream is soon to come. ​Hughes wrote the poem while riding a train from New York to his mother's home in Ohio. He was in despair over recent reviews of his first Broadway play and his mother's diagnosis of breast cancer. Despite being a pillar of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, he was still struggling for acceptance as a poet, battling persistent racism, and just eking out a living. Selling a poem or a story every few months, he called himself a "literary sharecropper." Fate, he said, "never intended for me to have a full pocket of anything but manuscripts."[3] Hughes finished the poem in a night but did not regard it as one of his best. It did not appear in his early anthologies and was only revived in the 1990s, first in a public reading by Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, later as a title for museum shows.
Hear a personal statement from Isabella Blake-Thomas as she shares her thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic as it relates to mental health. Listen. Hear her honesty. Watch. See her sincerity. With beautiful energy, Isabella speaks from the heart about an issue we are all dealing with.
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