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BT: But Sarah, I want to add something that you left out that I think is one of the most significant accomplishments, is I think it was around April, where you said, "Hey, we got a lot of members here. Let's try to leverage all these members, let's raise money, and buy food from the International District restaurants, and take it out to first responders." And so you started the GoFundMe campaign for this. And I remember we were talking about how much we should try to set as our goal. And I thought, well, maybe $3000? And you said, "No, let's go for, let's think bigger. Let's go $5000." And within...

SB: It ended up being like $16 or something.

BT: Yeah, it was just a remarkable amount. And we ended up going to, delivering about twenty different places.

SB: Yeah, I think it ended up being, like, I have the numbers somewhere. It was like over 800 meals, to first responders.

BT: It was just amazing and it meant, I know it meant a lot to the first responders. And the people that we went to weren't just the people in the major hospitals, we were going to clinics that were getting really slammed. And they kept thinking, oh, people forget about us. Thank you very much. So that's another one of Sarah's ideas.

BS: Yeah, that's really interesting. I think that's such a such a great community event. And have you done anything like that for the community in recent, you know, recently in recent months?

SB: Well, let's see, my friend Gabrielle and I, who I mentioned her previously, she's the one that really got me into the JACL. She and I had been planning to, again, right before the pandemic happened, have a big mixed race conference. And so it was supposed to be in person. And maybe like, a month before the event was supposed to happen, the pandemic started occurring. And we were like, oh, we have to cancel this, which really sucked, because we had like a whole bunch of really cool workshops and speakers lined up. And this event, again, was not just for like the Japanese or Asian American mixed race community, but it was supposed to be representative of all mixed race people wherever you're coming from. And instead of doing it in person, we segued and did it completely online. And so the speakers that we had originally planned to have, I think we had like, maybe three or four different online webinar workshops, and they ended up being so well received, we just kept planning. We just kept going, and because we didn't have to spend a bunch of funding on a venue and food and that kind of stuff, we were like, okay, cool, like we can just continue paying people because I'm a huge believer in paying people for their work. We can just keep paying people to come and do these workshops with us. And so a lot of that was really based on community feedback. We'd do surveys and be like, "Hey, like, what are folks interested in seeing? Like, what are the types of topics that you want to hear more about or want to engage around?" And so that was a really cool thing to do during the pandemic. Again, when there was like, you're not allowed to go to other people's houses, but we could still be a community together. And I think for the mixed race community, especially, there's not... there's, more and more things are coming up as far as like books and speakers and that kind of thing. But I think historically, there's not been a ton of resources for the mixed race community. And so to be able to provide that, especially in Seattle, right, which is a really diverse place. Yeah, was just a really neat experience.

BS: Yeah, and then, do you have like, any ideas for stuff you would like to do in the future? Like, if you could, if there were no restrictions on COVID? No restrictions on travel, that type of thing, what would you like to see happen in the future forward?

SB: That's a good question. I'm like, full disclosure, I'm in grad school, and I'm like, seven weeks away from graduating. So I'm like, what would you want to do? I'm like, I just want to finish school. [Laughs] Man, I would still love to do another mix, another mixed race conference, I would love to do another LGBTQ conference, and just make it even bigger and better than last time. I would love to do more programming that supports the Black community because obviously, that's something that's really needed right now. The JACL has done a lot of work around that recently. But I think that continuing to have that conversation, especially in the Asian American community, is really important.

BS: Yeah, and then definitely, and from what I've learned, I also know that you were involved in student government in your college as well. And as someone involved now, I can definitely see ways that it could help me later in life, but has, what were your biggest takeaways from being involved in student government?

SB: Probably that relationships are everything and that you can really leverage those when you're in student government. So as an example, like the API LGBTQ+ conference that we held, we held it at my school, because I was in student government. And I was like, "Hey, what if the student government partnered with the JACL, and we threw this event on campus, obviously, like, we can invite students and bring in the broader community." And it was just a really great synergistic partnership. In fact, the school brought in some funding for it, which was awesome. And so being able to create those partnerships, I think, was really, really important. And, you know, I still carry a lot of those today. In fact, one of our board members, her name is Renee, and she's great, was one of my bosses in student government. She was awesome, and was like, "Hey, I'm interested in getting involved with the JACL." And I pulled a Bill and I was like, "Well, why don't we come to a board meeting?" [Laughs] And she's just been involved since. So, yeah, building relationships. And just knowing that you have the ability to tap into those sometimes and being like, hey, I have this idea. And usually people are really receptive to it.

BS: And yeah, that's great.

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