Dear Friends of SARA,
Happy New Year! The last few years that common well-wish has been fraught with more nervous anticipation, as if the proclamation were more of a hopeful question. Will we have a happy new year? Will this be the year to end the pandemic? To face the realities of racial, gender, and sexual injustice? To find some ease in the political, financial, and social pressures that weigh on our minds? It can feel overwhelming. It can make us feel like the restless, exhausted child in the back of the car crying “Are we there yet??” That’s why I wanted to share with you what is quickly becoming my mantra for 2022: progress over perfection. My focus will be on the intentional and incremental steps that I can take to make my life and the work I do better. When I focus too much on getting it “perfect,” I freeze. It’s too daunting. Instead: Progress.
At SARA, our mission is to eliminate sexual violence and its impacts. That’s a big mission. Our focus will be on the progress that leads us closer to fulfilling that mission. We know that the “small wins”—a student learning a new intervention skill, a survivor taking the next step in healing, a person making that one single call to the hotline—are not that small at all. The path toward healing and toward creating a safe community for all is not always linear and is certainly not without barriers. But if we continue to focus on our progress we continue to create what we want to see in the world.
So I wish you a year of possibility, of potential, of progress.
Gratefully,
Renee Branson
Executive Director