Announcing the Schuler Solutions 2023 Summer Fundraiser
For a few years now, Schuler Solutions began supporting Tenants and Workers United. TWU organizes communities, builds power, wins changes, and advances social justice across Northern Virginia.
Schuler Solutions is sponsoring a summer campaign for TWU, where we will match the first $1,500.00 donated at this page.
Please join me and donate to support my neighbors living on the margins here in Northern Virginia.
Please feel free to share this link with your own friends and colleagues to help us make our goal of $5,000.
Why do I support TWU?
These are my grandparents, Lorenzo Chunga and his wife Maria. Grandpa immigrated from Paita in the north of Peru, and Grandma, whose maiden name was Segarra, came from Lares, in the central mountain region of Puerto Rico. They were the center of my extended family growing up. My mother was their sixth of seven children (seventh of eight if you include the brother born before her who died when he was 3). All our family holidays were spent with them at their home in Brooklyn, NY, surrounded by my many cousins, eating arroz con pollo, empanadas, pasteles, ceviche, and the various soups and guisados my grandmother made.
TWU is largely staffed and led by members of the native Spanish speaking immigrant community and their first-generation children here in NOVA, serving and advocating for, not only marginalized Latino American communities here in NOVA, but all people living precariously on the margins in inadequate housing, living subject to the whims of landlords and developers. I drive by their headquarters and through this community every day. They are my neighbors. When I see these neighbors in my community, I see my grandfather, my grandmother, my mother. . . and aunts and uncles and cousins. I remember the house my barely educated grandfather owned, an unreachable dream for my neighbors today.
My grandfather’s story is a quintessentially American story. He left Peru as a teenager with his brother to work on boats and ships. They worked on the Panama Canal, where his brother, Benjamin, died. Grandpa became a maritime engineer, without any formal education, and came to New York in his late 20’s. The Army got hold of him and he served two years, through which he earned citizenship. He met my grandmother, 11 years his junior, in New York when she was 19 and they had a family.
During all those family holidays, Grandpa would raise a glass and recognize the accomplishments of his children and grandchildren, proposing a toast, growing misty about the eyes. I adored him. He died with a full head of black hair, peacefully, when he was 88, surrounded by family, including me. I held his hand in mine as he slipped away. I was 14.
A young boy of about 2 years between his grandparents, who have their arms around him, seated outside with trees in the background.
As I work now through Schuler Solutions to elevate and recognize the strengths, talents, and accomplishments of others, he remains ever my inspiration. If you’ve worked with Schuler Solutions in some way and you have ever seen something of that spirit in action, now you know where it comes from.
Please join me in supporting TWU this summer. Help me reach our goal of $5000. I will match the first $1,500 donated.
Thank you in advance for donating, for considering this message, and perhaps for sharing it. If you can’t provide direct support, please consider forwarding this message to just three of your colleagues or friends.
A. J. Schuler, Psy. D.
Principal, Schuler Solutions LLC