Seattle Artist Relief Fund
When the Seattle Artist Relief Fund reached out to me to support them in raising funds, I didn't blink an eye. The visionary leadership of Ijeoma Oluo, Ebony Arunga, Gabriel Teodros, and LANGSTON exemplifies the values we desperately need right now more than ever... interdependence, emergence, actualizing vision. They already accomplished an unbelievable feat of raising half a million dollars in just a few weeks. They have to raise another half million to meet the already submitted applications. Please if you have some extra money, share it with artists like me who need some support right now. So grateful to have been supported myself by SARF and honored to have my story be featured here in this gorgeous video produced by Indiegenius.
ABOUT THE SEATTLE ARTIST RELIEF FUND:
Seattle has so far been the city hardest hit by the COVID-19 coronavirus. This scary and tragic time has a lot of people staying close to home in order to try to help prevent the spread of this virus that can be devastating to our elderly, disabled, and medically compromised friends and neighbors.
The widespread cancellation of group events has had a disproportionate impact on the Seattle arts community – especially those who rely on gigs to pay their bills. Creatives are people whose very existence relies on what they create and people being able to access their work. Musicians, DJ’s, independent chefs, caterers, actors, directors, writers, spoken word artists, teaching artists, all of these peoples jobs rely on people showing up for events but events are being canceled. This fund is aimed at helping those in the greater Seattle arts community who have been financially impacted by cancellations due to COVID-19. Depending on funding levels and amount of requests, priority may given to artists from communities that have been historically and systemically economically disadvanted in the Seattle Area: BIPOC artists, transgender & nonbinary artists, and disabled artists – but we will try to help as many artists with need in Seattle as we can as long as we have funds and are not currently turning away any Seattle Area artists who meet the simple criteria (living in the Seattle area, have gig/event/work cancellation in the arts, have fully completed the application). We will basically keep going until we run out of money or this crisis ends – whichever comes sooner. 100% of these funds will go to artists who have lost income due to cancellations and work stoppage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is emergency funding to help artists in need with rent, food, utilities, and medical needs. The amount given to each artist is determined based on how many funds we receive, how much artists have lost due to cancellations, and how many artists apply. We use these factors to calculate what percentage of each individual request we can pay each artist. We are currently giving a minimum of $100 and a maximum of $1000 to each individual artist.