GO ON! CHOOSE LOVE.
It's so easy to feel impotent when Everything Sucks, but wait, I have a solution!
Hey team. Goodness, can you believe we’re in December already, another year fading into the rear view. A year ending with one of the greatest global traumas in recent history: the Israel/Hamas conflict that is not only resulting in calamitous suffering and loss of life, but is reverberating and tearing apart communities and relationships across the globe.
It’s a particular breed of impotence you can feel when these things happen, isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I try to approach it by supporting and promoting aid. I’ve seen so many people in the past few weeks getting lost in the viper pit of social media, at war with each other. What good does that do? Absolutely nothing. (Step away from the iPhone. Not every feeling needs to be a billboard).
What does do good is tangible, quantifiable care that you know will be immediately delivered to those who need it; care not diluted or obfuscated by politics, nationalism, or red tape.
Which brings me to Choose Love. Choose Love was founded by Dawn O’Porter, Josie Naughton (now CEO) and some friends at lunch in London in 2015 when they were discussing the lack of assistance given to people escaping conflict (Syrian, Somalian, Eritrean, Iraqi, Afghani, Sudanese and more) during the European refugee crisis in Calais, France. The pals at lunch had that impotent feeling too, but not for long: they decided to send a truck of supplies, raise some funds, and soon upped the ante to launch an Amazon wish list which they promoted on social media.
48 hours later, they had received over 7000 packages, for which they hurriedly enlisted Big Yellow Storage. Then came the volunteers: some well-known, most not, who amplified the mission so rapidly that it became A Whole Thing. Then came the loaned “lorries,” (trucks, but “lorries” sounds cuter) as Dawn remembers, transporting the aid directly to the refugees at the crowded coastal camp.
Eight years later, Choose Love has raised over $110 million and helps displaced people 33 different countries. “We fund every stage of a refugee’s journey,” Dawn says, “From the moment they leave their homes, we support rescue boats in the water pulling babies from the sea, to life saving support in camps, all the way to legal aid for them to claim asylum and support to get jobs. Every step of the way.”
Choose Love also works to meet humanitarian need when people can’t leave strife, as in the situation in Gaza. In recent weeks they have been able to support partners getting desperately needed aid and water into Gaza as well as supporting victims of other crises like the war in Sudan.
And you know what’s so great about Choose Love? Not just their sincerity, but their efficiency and pragmatism. Walk into a Choose Love pop-up store and you are greeted by walls of products that will not leave the store with you but will be sent directly (via partner organizations) to refugees. Everything from warm baby clothes to food prep kits to coloring books in Arabic, LGBTQ support, diapers, toys, sleeping bags. For $15, for example, you can buy a winter coat for a child. ($15! That’s like 1.5 coffees these days!) It’s the most remarkable feeling, knowing that you’ve given something that will arrive on a child’s back just days later.
What else? Choose Love is fun. In 2015, then titled Help Refugees, they partnered with the hugely influential British designer Katherine Hamnett (famed for her rock’n’roll Choose Life t-shirts in the 80s) and gave it a humanitarian twist. “The Choose Love logo looks the same, so it was already iconic,” Dawn says. “And now ours has become iconic in its own way. Sometimes when you’re walking down the street wearing it, some older rocker will point and go, ‘Yeah, Choose Life!’”
Cool merch aside, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this whole organization became redundant?” I asked Dawn. “Yes, but it will never end in our lifetime,” she replied. “That’s why we are relentless in our fundraising, shameless. Because we need to help people and the pot will never be full.”
BUT… to help fill that pot, good people, hit the link below and think of that happy kiddie that you just bought a coat. Or the one with the coloring book. Or the one with a full belly for the first time in weeks. Choose Love.