anoosh jorjorian - 2020 (Brinley)
Early in 2020, Anoosh Jorjorian learned that the parent of a child in the Davis school district had been detained and ultimately deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Jorjorian, a Davis resident and parent of two DJUSD students, has long been active in support of immigrant communities in Yolo County, particularly since the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016, and was, as she often is, moved to action.
“A group of us got together because obviously a family losing a parent was a terrible thing and we wanted to figure out how we could prevent this from happening in the future,” Jorjorian recounted last week.
The group thought perhaps they could provide outreach through the school district, connecting with families at risk and providing assistance.
But then COVID-19 hit, and their plans shut down along with the schools themselves.
Problems for immigrant families, however, were only multiplying, with many workers losing their jobs and limited assistance available.
“It was really obvious that these families were going to need some support during the pandemic,” said Jorjorian.
So she, Ximena Jackson and others who were part of the effort, approached the Yolo Interfaith Immigration Network seeking assistance in helping these families. They also connected with Kate Snow at the school district to get referral forms distributed to school counselors who could pass them on to families in need.
Anoosh Jorjorian’s contributions to the community have been recognized before. She was also named a “Woman of the Year” by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove. Jorjorian, left, was joined by Davis Mayor Gloria Partida, Garamendi, and fellow recipient Bonnie Mintun at an awards ceremony. Courtesy photo
Thus was born ApoYolo, which since the pandemic began, has raised more than a quarter-million dollars in private grant funds that have been directly provided to 65 Spanish-speaking families in Davis and Winters to cover the cost of rent and other critical needs. ApoYolo’s 30 volunteers serve as navigators for each family, connecting them to services.
These families, notes Jorjorian, face challenges even with existing eviction moratoriums in place.
“A lot of these families had a really traumatic journey to get to the United States in the first place,” she said, “and they are very afraid of running afoul of the law or bringing attention to themselves in any way. They will go hungry and skip meals in order to get enough money to pay the rent in full.”
And while helping with rent has been the priority for ApoYolo — which covered $30,000 in rent payments for January alone — families have also been connected to food assistance, help with utility payments and more.
It has been an enormous effort — the organizing, the training of volunteers, the never-ending need to raise funds to help these families — and Jorjorian has been at the forefront.
Jorjorian, said YIIN co-chair John Ketonah “has given much of herself … for many of the essential workers and their families during this pandemic.”
But it’s not the first time Jorjorian has stepped up in service to the community.
Her efforts on behalf of LGBTQ+ youth and families and work on inclusion and diversity have impacted the community in many ways.
“She has instilled her presence into the fabric of our social justice movements so seamlessly that her absence would cause the tapestry to unravel,” said Davis Mayor Gloria Partida.
“Any issue she has taken up, and there have been many, has gained momentum, reached its full actualization and done so in a crucible of fidelity under Anoosh’s watchful eye.”
That’s why Partida, along with Davis Phoenix Coalition co-chair Tracy Tomasky; Yolo Community Foundation executive director Jessica Hubbard; and Davis Arts Center executive director Stacie Frerichs nominated Jorjorian for the A.G. Brinley Award.
The award, established in 1969 by John W. Brinley in honor of his father, Samuel, recognizes outstanding service to the city in a particular area. Each year a committee culls through the nominations received and selects a recipient. This year, it’s Jorjorian.
Jorjorian, 47, and partner Kevin Miller (head of special collections and university archivist at UC Davis’s Shields Library) moved to Davis from Los Angeles just five years ago, with their two children, now ages 10 and 12.
But Jorjorian’s impact on the community belies the relatively short time she’s lived here.
She almost immediately became a local lead of Moms Demand Action, the gun-safety organization, and soon became coordinator for Yolo Rainbow Families, a social and advocacy group for families with LGBTQ+ members. Her involvement has included supervising a youth group where kids gather not just for support and connection, but to grow into leaders.
“These kids are already pretty extraordinary,” said Jorjorian. “I love them so much… just watching them grow and bloom and go off into the world is such an experience for me and just being able to give them a space to connect, being able to sometimes introduce ideas to them that they wouldn’t have encountered any where…. I assume I’m getting more out of it than they are.”
Meanwhile, the work Jorjorian did for years in supporting local immigrant communities paved the way for ApoYolo.
That work began right after the 2016 presidential election when former mayor Robb Davis called community activists together to plan a response. An initial gathering at the Davis Senior Center drew a massive crowd of Davis residents.
“That was a really big moment because we were identifying which of the communities in Davis and Yolo County would most likely be having a really hard time during the next four years,” Jorjorian said.
“Out of that moment I started doing some work with immigrant communities,” she said. “That process over the last three years is when I was really learning about the immigrant community here, getting connected with those working with that community for years.”
Having all that in place enabled ApoYolo.
But Jorjorian and the other volunteers never imagined what they started in March would still be needed 10 months later.
“We wouldn’t have done it if we’d known at the beginning we’d be doing it this long,” she said. “It’s a really difficult model.”
But “people have been responding enormously to the project,” she added. “It’s really overwhelmed me, their generosity and care for a community that often goes overlooked.”
She singled out local nonprofits who have partnered in the effort, from the Yolo Food Bank and Empower Yolo to CommuniCare, the Yolo Crisis Nursery and more.
Grants, large and small, have come from the Travis Credit Union Foundation, the Yolo Community Foundation, the Latino Community Foundation and the faith community, including St. Martin’s Church, the Unitarian Universalist Church and Davis Friends.
Jorjorian’s focus on ApoYolo over the last year — not to mention her ongoing volunteer work in many other spaces — limited her ability to move her own new business along.
She formed that business, Inclusive Futures Consulting, LLC, she said, “because I just tend to get a lot of people asking, ‘How do I talk about racism or gender difference?’
It’s for parents, educators and institutions, “to teach them how to talk about identity difference and teach children how to be inclusive across the identity lines,” said Jorjorian. “My dream is to do workshops for DJUSD faculty and staff about how to make the DJUSD system more inclusive for all students.”
As for receiving the Brinley award, Jorjorian said she is “completely overwhelmed.”
“The privilege of living in Davis is that I feel like I’m constantly surrounded by conscientious, smart, caring people who want to make a difference, so I was really blown away,” she said of learning she was the recipient.
“I feel deeply honored.”
Said Partida: “In this year of racial uprising, a global pandemic that highlights inequalities and a yearning by Davis residents to be part of the solution to this inequality, Anoosh’s work has been a bright spot in working towards a more inclusive, just and equitable world.”
— From the Davis Enterprise - January 9, 2021. Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at aternus@davisenterprise.net. Follow her on Twitter at @ATernusBellamy.
