Blueprints for equity and celebrating change

The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) is advocating for change on the state and federal level after a recent New York Times investigation exposed the abuse of immigrant children by employers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and across the country. This WKKF grantee is working to solve the crisis in the most thoughtful way, and has outlined 10 policy changes to help protect children and immigrants from exploitation.

Health care professionals from Bronson Battle Creek Hospital visited WKKF grantee partner Battle Creek Public Schools to show students examples of women and people of color in many different professions across the industry and discuss the paths their careers have taken. This event, combined with the district’s high tech Health Care Simulation Lab, Career Academies model and dual-enrollment courses with grantees Kellogg Community College and Grand Valley State University are helping students dream big.

In an ongoing effort to rally businesses and investors around the power of advancing racial equity, PolicyLink, CapEQ and FSG released their Investor Blueprint for Racial and Economic Equity. The blueprint equips investors with a roadmap toward advancing equity in investments and businesses, and ultimately realizing an equitable economy.

We are celebrating the extension of Medicaid to postpartum mothers in Mississippi, where coverage increased from 60 days to 12 months. Mississippi, where 86% of pregnancy-related deaths occur after giving birth, was the last state to either extend or expand Medicaid.

We’re also sending a big congratulations to Cindy Ayers Elliott of Foot Print Farms, a WKKF grantee, who was named a USA Today’s Women of the Year honoree for Mississippi, for her work bringing healthy, affordable food to her community. Elliott says through the farm’s agritourism, she’s planting not just “seeds in the soil, but seeds in minds.”