Alert: Urgent Funding Needs in Texas

Last week, sudden warming in the Arctic plunged extremely cold air into southern regions across the US and around the world. Millions in Texas lost power and water as the state’s deregulated and gas-dependent grid failed. At the same time as many were dying from carbon monoxide poisoning as they tried to heat their homes or stay warm in their cars, the largest oil, gas and petrochemical plants in predominantly Black and Brown communities along the Gulf Coast flared or released massive quantities of harmful gases, darkening the skies of East Texas for miles. Some refineries reported releasing more than three times their entire 2019 emissions in less than 24 hours.

As in all disasters, those already burdened by historic injustice suffered the worst. This polar vortex storm is over, but recovery is on-going, as is the work to change the systems that are causing the damage.

As we checked in with Hive Fund grantee partners across Texas we learned about the Power Up Texas Fund, created by several state organizing groups. They are half-way toward their goal of raising at least $2 million for direct relief to those in need in the communities in which they are organizing, including financial assistance, wellness checks, water, food, and other basic essentials. Some funding will also go to small nonprofits serving communities that may not be reached through more traditional relief efforts. We’re making a donation to the Power Up Texas Fund's 501c(3) and hope you might consider it as well.

We’re also gearing up to double our multiyear general support grant-making for long-term climate, gender, and racial justice organizing across the South later this spring. The organizations we’re supporting, led primarily by Black, Brown, and Indigenous women in the South, are changing policies, ideologies, and economic frameworks in ways that help prevent these disasters in the future.

Heather McGhee writes in her phenomenal new book, The Sum of Us , “As racist structures force people of color into the mines as the canary, racist indifference makes the warnings we give go unheeded.” This polar vortex storm and the Texas grid failure, like the coronavirus pandemic, “is a tragic example of governments and corporations failing to protect Black, Brown, and Indigenous lives –though, if they had, everyone would have been safer.”