Greetings to all beloved supporters and monthly members. I have been dreading this post and it has taken me months to finally publish. My body fills with remorse, guilt and grief at the thought of ending this still much needed effort. As you have not heard from me in a while, updates are overdue on multiple fronts. Please read carefully and heed the call at the end to continue your financial solidarity in other ways.
Thank you for your trust and patience as I found the time, capacity and courage to write this!
Remembering Coffee For Gaza's Story
I opened this account in August 2024, nearly two years ago. I had been directly conversing and supporting families in Gaza since February of that same year, just a few months after the escalation of genocide in Gaza. As Instagram posts were increasingly banned, and GoFundme's became more and more contested, it was exceedingly difficult to raise funds through social media. Influencers and mutual aid workers were posting relentlessly, yet receiving less views and support each day due to the social media bans.
I encouraged campaign supporters to become monthly donors to individual campaigns with little success. Then I sparked the idea to create my own subscriber channel where trusted friends and supporters might feel more comfortable donating through me. To my great gratitude and surprise, I quickly amassed a following here on Buy Me A Coffee, supported by the efforts of dear friends who promoted this campaign for their birthdays and personal events.
Originally, I split the funds amongst the 5-10 personally vetted families that I had in my linktree. This only amounted to about $50 / family, which did not buy much with the skyrocketing prices due to manufactured scarcity in Gaza. Observing trends, I then noticed which families had the least direct support. I began to rotate which families could receive larger amounts so that they could afford necessities such as rent or larger stocks of food or fuel.
As circumstances shifted, we used the funds to primarily support Mai, and Amani Al-Tawil, who each received the least support out of the families I was in regular contact with. Some of my other families had larger followings of support, and I continue to run a separate GoFundme for Nourhan AlAqraa. Every single cent earned through Coffee For Gaza, has gone to families in Gaza, whether I was able to post updates regularly here or not. Coffee For Gaza ensured that families were able to remain housed and access food, fuel and medicine during some of the hardest days of their lives.
At our height, our page earned around $1300/month and still earns about $1000 monthly with over 30 members. In the 1.5 years of our campaign, we raised and distributed $26,568, including the upcoming transfer of $1000 to be made this May. Not only has this been a powerful space of direct mutual aid, your generosity filled me with revolutionary hope each month I was able to support the humanitarian needs of our friends in Gaza.
Shifting Capacity in Shifting Times
Originally, it seemed simple to calculate and send our funds each month as a gesture of solidarity and steadfast support. In reality, sending funds involved much more of my time and capacity than a straightforward financial transaction. Daily tasks included communicating between families and donors, managing bank accounts, calculating and tracking funds, assessing needs, and offering emotional support where needed. Over time, this labor became more challenging to maintain as I also navigated changes in my own health, the needs of my daughter, escalating political realities in the u.s., and loss of work opportunities.
I faithfully sent funds each month they arrived, but I found it difficult to also maintain the Coffee For Gaza page. As a result, I believe we began to lose monthly members who may not have been sure if the effort was continuing. I tried to solicit more donors several times with limited success.
I now find myself at a challenging personal and political juncture. Since the loss of my sister in 2022, my own life has felt adrift on waves of personal and global grief. For the past four years, I have faithfully tended those waters, while showing up as best I could in my responsibility to be a good relative to our kin in Palestine. Somehow, I was able to reclaim my personal healing while tending sensitive family dynamics, but my financial and professional life has deeply suffered. I am at a juncture now where I must dedicate more energy to my own sustainability in order to stay in the work of liberation long-term. As the genocide wages on in Gaza and polycrisis escalate locally and globally, we are all called to transform our activism, solidarity and commitments.
What comes next: Solidarity is Collective Commitment
While I feel a personal sense of guilt for not tending the updates here and closing the page, I also understand that each of your gifts was a commitment you made in your own body to give of your time and earnings. Solidarity does not rely on any one individual, and I trust you will continue to pay this forward as your capacity allows. While I will close this specific effort, I continue to manage the campaigns of Munira ElNajar and Nourhan Alaqraa, and give from my personal funds as capacity allows.
As I close this page, I humbly ask that you direct your monthly donation to any of the following efforts:
Help Mai and her family find stability among the ruins of Gaza
Mai and her three children will continue to need our support to house and feed themselves each month. Please consider becoming a monthly donor to her campaign, or setting an alert to give the amount of "coffees" you gave here directly to her.
Help Amani and her family survive
Amani supports 14 of her family members, including a sister who recently gave birth to twins amongst bombardment. They dearly need our support to remain housed in the bombed out home they reside in.
Hope and Support for our Family in Gaza
While my dear friend Munira ElNajar has become one of the most trusted and profound voices in Gaza, her support has dwindled and her family needs our steadfast attention. Her neighborhood was recently bombed, damaging her home and inflicting more trauma. Visibility does not equal liberation.
Lebanon Solidarity Collective is managed by a dear friend, alongside a collective on the ground in Lebanon to provide immediate direct aid to families displaced by the ongoing assault and occupation of Lebanon.
You can still support any of the families in my linktree: https://linktr.ee/SupportGazaFamilies
Thank you again, for your support, community and commitment in the past two years. I hope I continue to organize and ideate alongside each of you towards collective liberation. All memberships have been paused for 6 months to allow everyone to process the sunset and redirect their funds. After that point, the itself page will be deactivated.
Please feel free to leave comments below or reach out to me personally at [email protected].
Sincerely,
Candice Valenzuela
IG @education.healing.justice