Let's Give A Damn Reparations Initiative

As seen on Newsweek!

Over the past year, I've been brainstorming how the Let's Give A Damn family can participate in reparations in tangible and lasting ways. It's important to show up at marches. It's important to support Black-owned businesses. And it’s also important to financially interrupt systemic injustice—and to call it for what it is.

Reparations are right. Reparations are just. And that’s why we’re launching a campaign to cover the student loans of Black and Brown therapists. 

Every dollar given to this campaign will help cover the student loans of Black and Brown therapists. Because of the pain and trauma of the past year, they are busier and more overwhelmed than ever before. They’ve shown up as healers for so many others while deep in the midst of processing their own pain, grief, and loss. I want Black and Brown therapists to be able to focus on their monumentally important work and self-care without the compounding stress of  student loans. 

This is a practical way to love our friends and neighbors during this year of racial and societal unrest.

I recently listened to a podcast conversation with Courtney Leak  (LCSW, LISW-CP / Therapist & Wellness Curator). It is one of the reasons I'm launching this project. The following quote impacted me deeply:

“Being a Black therapist is hard, exhausting, and worth it. Right now I’m having to sit a lot with being the helper and the harmed at the same time. In the last year, it’s been very common to be in my own fear and tears around what’s going on in my country and then jump on a screen with a woman who looks just like me who is currently crying for her black son when I just finished crying for mine. And having to put that to the side, show up for her, and do my job. There is never any rest and self-care is really hard.

It is transformational to see someone whose ancestors, more than likely, were brought here in chains—break those generational chains. It feels like such validation to the suffering that my people have experienced to help break those chains.

Sometimes I cry out to God, ‘Thank you for choosing me to do this. Who must you think I am? Well, I accept and I will stand in it.’ But it’s heavy. It’s really heavy."

Would you be willing to donate some (or all) of your stimulus check to this important reparations initiative?

If you need all of it, keep it—it's yours. If you need some of it, consider donating the rest. Either way, thank you for reading and considering joining this important initiative. 

Love y'all. 

— Nick Laparra
Founder of Let's Give A Damn 


A note about how we’ll distribute the fund: 

After the 14-day fundraising campaign is over, a group of advisors will reach out to the incredible Black and Brown therapists we know who are already doing the work in communities all over the United States. Their insights will guide the board in assessing needs, and then in distributing funds accordingly. Every donor will be notified by email once the funds have been distributed. Our initial fundraising goal is $50,000 but I hope we’ll wildly surpass that.