The Ripple Effect: One person can make a difference in their community

It didn’t feel like a big moment at the time.

I asked the speaker I had just heard at a conference in early 1990: “Do you offer workshops that are open to the public?” I was struck by his presentation that opened up a new way for me to think about racism and other “isms.”

I had been volunteering with Winchester’s A Better Chance (ABC), a national program that places students of color in rigorous college-prep high schools. I was worried about how they were experiencing our (then) predominantly white town.

“There is one coming up in the Boston area in March,” he said. He was one of the founders of VISIONS, a multicultural training and consulting organization. 

I signed up and worried: Who else would be there? I was just a volunteer with no professional background. I couldn’t have imagined, walking into that four-day workshop, how much it would change me. 

When the workshop was over, I felt fired up, as though I had been shot out of a cannon, but landed in an empty field. VISIONS had given me a new way to understand how racism and other “isms,” operate, not only at the personal level, but culturally and institutionally as well. They suggested practices that would help with communicating across differences. I was inspired and newly committed to doing anti-racism work in white communities. 

MORE ABOUT THE NETWORK FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

Curious about the Network For Social Justice ? Check out our story about the Network and its 35th anniversary from members here.

I was also alone, but not for long. 

In the months that followed, I began reaching out to see if others shared my concerns. I connected with a local elementary school teacher, a kindred spirit, and together we invited people to gather. 

We were encouraged when community members came to open meetings at the library and shared their concerns: about raising children in a town that felt, at the time, overwhelmingly white; about whether Winchester could truly be welcoming to those who were different; about painful experiences of anti-Semitism, homophobia, and exclusion. 

We listened. It was heart-wrenching to hear those stories. I remember realizing, in a way I hadn’t fully before, that the town I experienced as comfortable and familiar did not feel that way to everyone. In response, a small group of us came together and named ourselves The Multicultural Network.

We began to build. We recruited 15 people to participate in a weekend workshop led by a consultant from VISIONS. That was the first big attempt to bring the new perspectives I was so impressed with to Winchester. 

I connected with a high school guidance counselor, and she recruited a group of students for a workshop that led them to found the Multicultural Issues Group. 

As momentum grew, we formed a board. With each forward step, it became clearer that the Network filled a real need. 

That first weekend workshop led to others, and then to conversations, forums, and new ways of engaging as a community. Together we began to look more closely — not only at the town around us, but at ourselves: our assumptions, our blind spots, the ways we had been shaped without always realizing it. We learned, and created programs and partnerships that changed how people saw and understood one another. 

At a board meeting a few years later, two members shared their experiences of living with disabilities. As we listened, we learned about the barriers that confronted them on a daily basis, barriers that most of us had never noticed. We left that meeting not just more informed, but with a new responsibility to speak up. 

Reflecting on the impact the Network [for Social Justice] has had on me, and others, I realize that one of the most powerful ripple effects from listening to someone’s lived experience is being moved to become an advocate, sharing the responsibility for breaking down barriers of all kinds!

High School students, beginning with that first group, inspired us with their commitment, found community with each other and with the Network and many have gone on to become lifelong advocates for social justice issues.  

Thirty-five years ago, I dedicated four days of a busy life to an experience that changed how I saw the world, and my place in it. There have been challenges, of course. In the early days people asked, “why do we need a Multicultural Network?” We’ve experienced pushback on issues like gay marriage. Our mission has always been broad and at times we stretched our bandwidth as volunteers.

I’ve long since stepped back from a leadership role and continue to appreciate that, as a white, heterosexual, socioeconomically secure person, I could devote myself to the organization for so many years without having to deal with the daily micro-aggressions that so many experience.  

My participation in the workshop in 1990 created a ripple that led to the founding of the Multicultural Network, now the Network for Social Justice, a name that better reflects our current mission.

IF YOU GO...

The Network For Social Justice will celebrate its 35th anniversary on Saturday, April 11, from 7-9:30 p.m., at the Sons of Italy, 117 Swanton St., Winchester. RSVP HERE 

The empty field that I felt I had landed in in 1990 is now filled with the incredible, caring, passionate, smart, and committed people who have given their time and energy to the Network. They have kept it going, growing, and flourishing with community support, major grants and thoughtful leadership.  

Now from the sidelines I am awed by what it has become and by all those who continue the work.  

I am grateful to have set the first ripple in motion.

—  Winchester resident Sandy Thompson is the co-founder of The Winchester Multicultural Network, now the Network for Social Justice.