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Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

The Fresh Air Fund stands against injustice and racism, and believes that the lives of the children we serve matter. We believe that The Fresh Air Fund can have the greatest impact on the communities we serve when its teams, volunteers and Board actively and intentionally engage in conversations about our history, systemic racism and inequality, and commit to actions and policies that dismantle practices and systems.

Our commitment is to ensure equity is at the core of our work across the organization, and to uplift and invest in the lives of our young people and ensure they have access to quality and enriching summer experiences and youth development programs.

The Fund embarked on a journey in 2015, laying the groundwork on changing language, identifying organizational values and initiating conversation and communication internally and externally around racial and social justice. We are committed to building on this work and taking actions to demonstrate our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and ultimately to the changes required to becoming an anti-racist organization.

We recognize it is a journey. We will learn, grow and may make mistakes along the way. We will serve as a positive agents of change for our youth, support quality youth programming, bridge the opportunity gap, and address the racial gaps in the economy and education that present too many challenges to the children we serve. We know we can do more, need to do more, and will do more to support and demonstrate our commitment to our youth, their futures and to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Statements

停止仇恨亚裔美国人

March 18, 2021

The Fresh Air Fund stands with the AAPI community and is deeply saddened to, once again, see acts of hatred and violence. The recent tragedy in Atlanta follows what has been a very troubling increase in violent incidents targeting the Asian-American community since the start of Covid-19 in New York City and nationally.

The Fresh Air Fund is deeply engaged, committed and connected to the Asian-American community. Almost 30% of the children we serve identify as Asian.  On behalf of The Fresh Air Fund, I affirm our support of the Stop AAPI Hate movement and that The Fresh Air Fund stands with our AAPI children, families, staff and partners, and will not tolerate racism, hate or inequity.

真挚地，

法蒂玛·莎玛
执行董事
新鲜空气基金

黑人的命也是命

June 3, 2020

亲爱的新鲜空气社区成员，

The disturbing events of the past several weeks have reignited for me anger, deep sadness and horror at what we are witnessing in this country at the hands of racism, bigotry, racial injustice and violence. The horrifying death of George Floyd has, yet again, reminded us of the senseless killing of Black men and women and how Black men and women have been profiled for living their lives, enjoying the fresh air, bird watching or going for a run.

Many members of our Fresh Air community — our staff, children and families, alumni and beyond — continue to experience injustices in their daily lives and my heart aches because of this country’s history and present reality of racism and racial injustice.

Over the past few weeks, The Fresh Air Fund has been working to prepare for summer 2020 amid this pandemic that continues to demonstrate great challenges for all of us and that has disproportionately and tragically affected the children and families we serve. We are working to re-imagine what a Fresh Air experience looks like and planning to provide opportunities for thousands of New York City children this summer. Our commitment to protect the children we serve and ensure their safety and well-being is as strong as ever.

We are deeply committed that our children know that The Fresh Air Fund believes that they matter, that their lives matter and that The Fresh Air Fund stands in solidarity against injustice and racism. We support our children and staff, and are providing safe spaces for discussion and expression. We are working to support our community and will be sharing resources with our staff and the broader Fresh Air community.

当我们找不到言语时，我们需要更加努力，我们需要倾听。我代表新鲜空气基金明确声明，黑人的命也是命，新鲜空气基金现在不会、也不会容忍种族主义、仇恨和不平等。在这痛苦的时刻，我们将继续努力实现我们的目标。

真挚地，

法蒂玛·莎玛
执行董事
新鲜空气基金

资源

We’ve shared information and links to activities for speaking with children about social justice and Black Lives Matter on our Resource page. We’ll continue to update it with additional materials.