306. Quilting for Justice

Lauren Black from the Social Justice Sewing Academy talks about the opportunity her organization had to completely rethink the way they engaged volunteers, and to launch an entirely new volunteer engagement strategy during a pandemic.

What do you do when a pandemic strikes and your organization’s mission is running workshops for kids and teens? You launch an entirely new strategy engaging individual skills-based volunteers - at least that’s what you do if you’re the Social Justice Sewing Academy!

Founded in 2017, the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA) is a non-profit organization that aims to empower individuals to utilize textile art for personal transformation, community cohesion, and to begin the journey toward becoming an agent of social change. Prior to COVID-19, youth workshops and programs were at the core of the organization.Through a series of hands-on workshops in schools, prisons, and community centers across the country, SJSA used social justice and art education to bridge artistic expression with activism.  Many of our young artists made art that explored issues such as gender discrimination, mass incarceration, gun violence, and gentrification. The powerful imagery that youth created in cloth demonstrated their critique of issues plaguing their local and larger communities. These quilt blocks are then sent to volunteers around the world to embellish and embroider before being sewn together into quilts to be displayed in museums, galleries, and quilt shows across the country.

While youth programming remains at the heart of SJSA, the civil rights movement of 2020 and the concurrent COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted SJSA’s programming. Due to no longer being able to provide in-person programming and limited virtual youth workshops, SJSA launched a series of new initiatives to critically respond to the times, including the Remembrance Project. The Remembrance Project engages remote skills-based volunteers to create a quilt block to remember members of the community lost to violence.

Time + Talent co-host Jennifer Bennett is a volunteer with SJSA and she also shares her experience volunteering during the Summer of 2020 with the Remembrance Project.

For more information, visit https://www.sjsacademy.org/

To volunteer with SJSA and the Remembrance Project: https://www.sjsacademy.org/volunteer-form 

To view the Remembrance Project Gallery: https://www.instagram.com/sjsa_remembranceproject/

To see other SJSA Projects: https://www.instagram.com/sjsacademy/

To see and read about the block Jennifer created: https://www.instagram.com/p/CEsGjDyn_st/

To learn more about the Remembrance Project and the Stitching Stolen Lives book: https://www.sjsacademy.org/shop/p/stitching-stolen-lives

For More:

For more info on engaging skills-based volunteers, check out Season 2 of the Time + Talent Podcast, Episode #206 Strengthening the Impact of Young Professional Volunteers.

Guest Bio:

Lauren Black
Executive Director
Social Justice Sewing Academy

Lauren Black is the Executive Director of the Social Justice Sewing Academy (SJSA). Lauren currently works as a School Psychologist in the Los Angeles Unified School District. She recently completed her Masters in Educational Psychology and her Education Specialist Degree in School Psychology at Loyola Marymount University. 

She is passionate about tackling issues that disempower people and erase their voices based on elements of their identity. In working with SJSA, Lauren fights against marginalization, systemic oppression, and underrepresentation through education, outreach, and collaboration.

You can find Lauren Black at [email protected].