Become

Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers, mentors, aunties, grandmothers, chosen family, and caregivers who lead with compassion and resilience every day. 🌸

At BECOME, we believe transformation begins with connection, care, and community — values so many mother figures embody in powerful ways. Thank you for the love, encouragement, and strength you pour into others.

Today, we celebrate you and the countless ways you help communities heal, thrive, and BECOME. ✨

May today bring you rest, joy, and celebration. 💫

At the beginning of every month, BECOME focuses on a monthly intention; a purposeful action that when implemented, can enrich lives and the community, and sow the seeds of change. For the month of May, we encourage you to focus on Collective Joy in the form of Celebration, Creativity, & Resistance.

Joy is radical. For many communities, especially Black communities, it has always been a form of resistance—present in music, movement, storytelling, and art.

This month, notice the small moments that bring lightness or ease in your day. Gather with friends, create something new, or honor a story worth telling. By intentionally creating spaces for celebration, we not only care for ourselves but strengthen the bonds that hold our communities together.

Through relationship-building, community-led research, and restorative practices, BECOME helps communities tap into their own power, strengthen connections, and create real, lasting change.

Join us in celebrating what’s possible when communities lead—tap in, partner with us, or become part of the movement today.

On March 21st in Chicago, we gathered to celebrate the power of community-led evaluation through BECOME’s Community Evaluation Innovation Lab (CEIL). Together, we honored the growth of our evaluators, recognized our Founding Cohort for two years of dedicated learning, and uplifted the role of culturally responsive evaluation in advancing community transformation.

This celebration was more than a milestone—it was a reminder of what’s possible when lived experience and community wisdom lead the way.

If you’re inspired by this approach, we’d love to connect. Partner with BECOME to co-create evaluation strategies that center lived experience and drive action in your community.

What recent milestones or moments of growth are you or your team celebrating right now? Share with us below—we’d love to uplift your wins. ✨

April invites us into renewal, reflection, and responsibility. 🌱 As the earth blooms, we’re called to reconnect with our values and consider the long-term impact of our choices on our communities and the world around us. Across cultural moments like Earth Month, Passover, and Easter, this season reminds us to care for both people and the planet in intentional, meaningful ways.

At BECOME, we center stewardship and sustainability as collective practices rooted in justice. 🌍 We honor the leadership of Black and marginalized communities who have long championed environmental equity, land protection, and food sovereignty, reminding us that caring for the land is inseparable from caring for one another.

If this message resonates with you or your organization, we invite you to engage with BECOME’s work by visiting our website at https://hubs.li/Q049hNc20. 🌿 Whether you’re looking to deepen your commitment to sustainability or build more equitable, community-centered practices, join us in advancing stewardship that supports both people and the planet. 💚

*Photos were taken at Pitch In @ Foster Park w/ BECOME & Friends (2024). All volunteers pictured are from John Lewis Young Leaders Program.

On the last Friday of every month, BECOME engages in a Personal Peace Day—a day of reflection, introspection, meditation, and relaxation. At BECOME, we believe that in order to bring about change in the world around us, we must first find peace within ourselves.

We invite you to pause today to breathe, reflect, and be present in the moment. Creating space for your mind and body to reset to help you connect more deeply with others and yourself. And being more connected means showing up with greater clarity, compassion, and intention in your relationships, your work, and your community.

When we take time to restore ourselves, we strengthen our ability to listen, to care, and to lead with purpose. That inner peace doesn’t stay contained—it ripples outward, shaping how we engage, how we support one another, and how we contribute to a more just and grounded world.

🌿 How will you create space for peace today? Share how you’re honoring your Personal Peace Day in the comments below.

Honoring legacy is more than just thoughtful words of reverence and remembrance; it’s a living practice shaped by everyday choices guided by intention. It also means acknowledging that much of our work happens on land marked by dispossession of cultures and communities.

For Black communities, legacy has always been intergenerational—rooted in survival, migration, and building belonging wherever we landed. Elders, youth, and those in between have carried lessons forward through memory, movement, and collective care.

Holding these truths together, without comparison or hierarchy, deepens our understanding of responsibility and relationship. When we pair acknowledgment with intergenerational learning, our work becomes more rooted and connected.

This month, reflect on whose shoulders you stand on—across generations and across land—and share how that reflection is shaping your actions below. ⬇️

It’s Personal Peace Day. 🧡✨

Take this as your invitation to slow down and check in with yourself. Step away from the noise. Breathe a little deeper. Choose something today that supports your well-being — whether that’s rest, reflection, movement, or a simple moment of quiet. Prioritizing your peace isn’t indulgent, it’s necessary.

At BECOME, we set aside the 4th Friday of every month to care for ourselves as a team. Today, we invite you to do the same for yourself.

What would it look like to truly honor your peace today?

This week, our Infinity Mom Mentors hosted a resource table at the Love Your Baby, Yourself, and Your Health Resource Expo event at St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center. At the event, expectant mothers and moms with newborns were connected with resources such as prenatal & infant care, lactation support, doula services, healthcare & mother/baby community service providers, and so much more!

The Infinity Mom Mentor Network is a community led initiative that connects experienced Black mothers with new and/or pregnant Black mothers for holistic guidance, mentorship and social/emotional supportive networks. The mom mentors engaged over 40 new moms while spreading awareness about the Infinity Mom Mentor Network and open recruitment!

Learn more about the Infinity Mom Mentor Network and/or join BECOME and the Courage to Love Collaborative in their work to end infant mortality among Black babies in Auburn Gresham by emailing Shemeka Woodson or visiting one of the sites below.

Email:
[email protected]

Sites:
https://hubs.li/Q0441L1G0
https://hubs.li/Q0441zdg0