P.S. Have a suggestion for a Jewish Person of the Week? Email info@gatherdc.org to nominate your friend. colleague, partner, or even yourself!
Miriam: I moved back home to New York from Arizona, and 6 months later got a job at Waste Management Recycle America in Baltimore. After two years of being immersed in the recycle commodities world I received a job offer from Catholic University to run their sustainability program . That job made me an official DC resident! Now I think about moving back to New York, but love and a lease keeps me here. I’m also really interested to see how events and the hospitality industry adapt to our new COVID-19 realities.
Miriam: I worked in the hospitality industry throughout college to have a little money in my pocketbook and loved it. In college, I got a degree in sustainability because I felt like it was a way I could learn how to help improve the world. While working at Catholic University, I started serving at Marvin on the weekend and sort of built my DC community from working there. Marvin was such a fun, fast place to work at and I started working there full time in events. But everything has shifted since COVID.
Miriam: BAR just became an official organization, and was founded by my good friend Allison Lane. We’re in the infancy stages right now and just got our nonprofit tax ID number! It started the day after Lafayette Square happened when protesters were targeted and attacked, and Allison was there and started tweeting about her experience. People reached out to see how they could help her and she realized she could use this support to focus on fighting injustice. In the long term, we want to focus on pushing against the many inequalities in the hospitality industry like access to mental health, undocumented workers and their plight, etc.
Right now, we’re focusing on supply-tending protesters and it’s been great; we’ve worked with so many people who are willing to give us fresh produce, water. Then we partner with organizers, set up a tent, and make it happen.
Miriam: If you want to get involved, check out our website, follow us on Instagram, or send us an email.
Also, if you feel the injustices and see the oppressions that are happening in the world, do whatever it is you can to make this world a more just place. Whether that means connecting someone who wants to protest with a protest you know about, or calling the Louisville police and asking why no one has been arrested for the tragic shooting of Breonna Taylor, protesting or signing petitions and tweeting/sending emails to policy changers and makers. Whatever you can do, do it. Now is the time.
Miriam: I would wake up and meditate before I do anything else. Then, I’d go to The Wydown or La Colombe, I love their oat milk draft lattes. Then, I’d walk around Malcolm X Park and go to 305 Fitness after that. 305 has done a great job of transitioning to online workouts, but I miss going in person and feeling that energy. Then, I’d go to a museum with my boyfriend. Ideally it would be a Monday and the museum would be uncrowded, which is the best. After that, we’d go to The Kennedy Center Millenium Stage at 6pm for their free concert series. I love that DC is such a walkable city and there is so much beautiful architecture, so we’d walk to Le Diplomate or Szechuan Palace for dinner.
Miriam: Since Covid started. Before, I was so sporadic about it. But since March, I realize I had the time to commit to some of the things I’ve always wanted to do. I try to do it everyday before I really wake up and life sweeps you in like a riptide. I use the Calm app.
Miriam: Just to be happy and at peace with myself, the world, and in my relationships. That will probably be an ever-aspiring goal. I also have this fantasy about living in upstate New York, buying a farm, and living off the land and being in nature.
Miriam: They party!
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