“I believe that shifting culture is necessary for systems change. Rest results in strength. Healing creates energy. Joy sparks creativity. Connection creates community. Dreaming leads to transformation. This is where the potential lies.”
Maria De La Cruz
Respite for Black Women (#r4Blw), a new Opportunity Fund initiative, has been underway since spring of 2022. Inspired by local activists, Opportunity Fund board and staff invited a multiracial, multicultural, intergenerational group of local, national, and international individuals to ask questions, explore, and dream with Opportunity Fund about what it could mean for philanthropy to provide resources that fund the “right to rest” to Black women, in the full gender expression of that term. A flurry of questions emerged—from what does it mean for Black women to be funded to create a way of being that is accessible and considers the whole person? What does it mean to rest? Where does one go to rest? How do we in all of our complexities begin to visualize spaces for Black women and their families to simply rest and just be in their bodies?