3/11/2022 Foundry Giving Friday: Street Safe New Mexico

• Posted on 11 March 2022
• Posted in Foundry Giving Friday
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Every Friday The Foundry Home Goods contributes 5% of our total sales to a different community-nominated small-and-mighty cause. This Friday's Foundry Giving Friday recipient? Street Safe New Mexico. [content warning: the work that Safe Street New Mexico does addresses physical assault, death, and sexual violence]

Street Safe New Mexico is an all-volunteer nonprofit based in that follows a harm-reduction philosophy by striving to reduce the harmful consequences associated with life on the street.

That's who they are on paper, anyway.

Street Safe New Mexico was started in 2009 after the bodies of 11 women—who had all been living on the street—were found buried on the West Mesa of Albuquerque, NM. They had disappeared almost SIX years earlier, yet no one in the public even knew they were missing. Founders Christine Barber and Cindy Jaramillo met soon after and agreed that this is absolutely unacceptable. Something must be done and, drawing on their passion, humanity, and depths of personal experience, they would be the ones to do it.

In their words:

We don’t sit around and talk about how to best advocate for street women, wringing our hands and measuring our words. We take action.

We got tired of seeing street women we’ve known for years be raped and killed, so we made nonlethal hand-to-hand combat weapons for them. We’ve handed out thousands for free.

We got sick of the nameless men who get away with these crimes. So we created a list of the attackers that we hand out every week to the women. [the bad guy list. another trigger warning. it is bad. BUT. until the need for it ceases to exist let it please exist].

We are not slick. We are not poised. We do not know how to practice politics. We don’t sit around an office - mainly because we don’t have one - and look over spreadsheets and plan fundraising events.

We prefer to be where we make a difference - on the street. Talking and laughing with the women we serve. Helping them stay alive.

This is how we advocate. Hard.

If you don't need anything from us, please consider donating directly to Safe Street New Mexico. If you do find yourself in need of something from us know that your purchase goes to support good change happening on the community level.

Thanks to sweet Dakota for the nomination.

If YOU have a worthy cause to nominate for our Foundry Giving Friday initiative, pop on over to our Nomination Page and drop us a line. We're all in this together.