Imagine a community where every child gets a healthy start

Our mission has always compelled us to focus on improving the health of those in our community who have been disadvantaged due to income, race, or socioeconomic status. In 2021, we asked ourselves what more we should be doing to address and eliminate disparities in health outcomes in Whatcom County. We considered our vision of every child getting a healthy start and every person receiving the care they need throughout their lifetime. We agreed that we cannot achieve that vision without focusing on Health Equity.

Because of that, the Chuckanut Health Foundation Board of Directors voted to make Health Equity a long-term strategic priority. This work will serve to amplify voices of people who have been marginalized and to bring philanthropic resources to community-based ideas and efforts to end systemic barriers to health such as racism, discrimination, and poverty. The data is clear: we cannot truly strengthen community health without addressing these barriers and the disparities they cause.

The first grant of the Health Equity fund went to investing in community leaders who developed the Whatcom Racial Equity Commission – a quasi-governmental entity that will work to create systemic change and lead to a more equitable and just community.

Click to support this work with a donation

So, what is the Racial Equity Commission?

Racism is intersectional. Treating racism through the lens of public health allows us to address the inequities and disparities we see in system outcomes.

In Whatcom County we are on average generally healthy, but disparities hide within our community’s averages and systems, from early childhood to criminal justice. 46% of our children overall enter kindergarten ready for school, but looking at this by race, that rate falls to 23% for our Native American children and 27% for our Hispanic children. Hispanic individuals make up 10% of Whatcom County’s population but account for 30% of our COVID-19 cases. Our Indigenous population is 3% of our community but is 14% of the jail population. And our Hispanic, Black, and Native American community member’s household income is on average half that of white community members. (Click here to read a PDF with additional information about racial disparities in our community.)

The Racial Equity Commission was envisioned as an interlocal, quasi-governmental entity in Whatcom County. This design will provide a framework for a constructive collaborative where representatives from various institutions in Whatcom County, including local governments and tribal nations, schools, healthcare, and criminal justice, can work side by side with Social Justice and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) leaders to address racial equity, civil rights, social justice, and systemic oppression. This will allow for a both proactive and reactive work associated with ending racial disparities locally.

Borrowing from the models of the Bellingham Whatcom County Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Commission, King County’s Civil Rights Commission, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Los Angeles’s Civil and Human Rights Commission, and the UK’s Racial Equity Commission, we envisioned a commission focused on achieving equity, social justice, and civil rights for all those who reside in Whatcom County. Taking inspiration from these various models we can purposefully integrated and tailored a structure that will best serve our community.

Learn more about the 2021 Community Visioning Summit

Support the Commission

There are many ways to help the Commission grow. You can add your name to a letter of support. You can write your own letter of support for this work. Do you know someone who should be involved? Or maybe you want to be? We want to hear from you. And, we need to raise money to support the planning, research, and outreach that is needed to build Whatcom County’s first Racial Equity Commission. Please consider making a gift to this effort. A gift of any size, from $1 to $1,000, makes a big difference.

Meet the Founders

Featured

Sep 12, 2022

Shu-Ling Zhao, Co-Founder

Sep 12, 2022

Shu-Ling Zhao (she/her) is a biracial Chinese-American, mother, daughter, sister, wife, auntie, performer, director, fabricator, community organizer, arts educator, lover of local wildlife, cooking enthusiast, fundraiser, facilitator, fair-weather runner, black coffee drinker, data devotee, seltzer connoisseur, amateur plant parent, millennial, and artist residing on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Lummi, Nooksack, and Coast Salish people.

Being born and raised in Whatcom County, Shu-Ling spent her k-12 years in the Meridian School District. For seventeen years, Shu-Ling has had a career in the arts. Her credits include over a decade of work making theater - both on stage and behind the scenes. A constant thread of her work in the performing arts has been utilizing the arts as a means to inspire empathy and constantly working towards equity within the performing arts community.

In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Shu-Ling began working with community organizers Kristina Michele Martens, Ebony Harris, and Terrance “TeeJay” Morris to support the social justice movement locally. In August of 2020, she helped organize the protest to declare racism a public health crisis and later worked with both Whatcom County and City of Bellingham on their Resolutions Affirming Racism as a Public Health Crisis. Following the murder of six Asian and Islander women in Atlanta in March 2021 and with the rise of hate incidences against the AAPI community, Shu-Ling organized a solidarity vigil at Maritime Heritage. She is a proud steward of the process to develop a Whatcom Racial Equity Commission.

Sep 12, 2022

Kristina Michele, Co-Founder

Sep 12, 2022

Kristina Michele is a native San Diegan who was raised by a single mother doing everything she could to keep her family fed and housed. When Kristina turned 7, her mom decided to go to college. There, she earned a degree in English with two minors in History and Spanish. This ignited Kristina’s drive for knowledge and dogged determination, as her home was filled with the energy of learning. In her youth, Kristina was active in theater companies, youth sports, church activities, and work as a camp counselor. After graduating high school, Kristina worked in restaurants for over a decade while taking classes in criminal justice, theater, education, and psychology.

Kristina currently works as a Real Estate Agent with Coldwell Banker Bain and has found a plethora of events and activities to keep her active in the community. She started a local singing competition called Bellingham Idol and has created radio shows for local community stations. Kristina is the founder of the Mission Accomplished? social media platform whose main focus is shedding light on local community equity projects and also creates their own content. Mission Accomplished? most recently published a series of “Voter Education Videos” for the local 2020 general elections and they will continue to bring relevant and local information to the masses. Kristina was also a co-host of a local TV show called The Bellingham Tonight Show, interviewing local community leaders and people running for office. She also did work with the Ferndale Chamber of Commerce and moderated the book “So You Want To Talk About Race” with members.

Sep 12, 2022