Everybody Needs a HUUB

After a year of social distancing and lock-downs, our community needs a place to welcome people back and to get together in a safe environment again. We’re providing the kind of resources, spaces, and programs everyone needs after the difficult and painful year this pandemic created. Everybody needs a HUUB: please help by supporting ours!

We are doing this work through three program areas, which your donations will help support:

1. Joe Thomasberger Community Fellows: named after Joe Thomasberger whose life was defined by advancing social justice and helping young people find their footing and their voice, this leadership development program for young adults focuses on social justice and building community.
2. Ben Jones Community Gardens: named after Orange's first black city councilman, the gardens are transforming HUUB’s outdoor spaces into  places to connect with and organize our neighbors.
3. Planning to Stay: this multi-year, collaborative effort is organizing local stakeholders to slow displacement while protecting and supporting existing tenants, homeowners, and small businesses.

Despite the pandemic, we have continued to bring people together online and safely in-person, providing opportunities for building relationships and strengthening community. After a year inside, socially and physically distanced from the people we love, we all need places like the HUUB more than ever before. Thank you for helping us continue doing this work!

This summer we will recruit and offer Joe Thomasberger Community Fellowships to youth in Orange. We will meet weekly and work on projects together throughout the academic year.

We are building the Ben Jones Community Gardens and this summer we will plant produce, flowers, and trees. We will develop programming with neighbors and a partnership with the elementary school nextdoor. In the winter we will plan for the next growing season and next spring will plant the gardens and get ready for the 2022 growing season.

After the March 2021 Planning to Stay Summit, we are recruiting for the P2S Steering Committee. In the fall we will provide a training and organize activities to support the P2S work and document narratives about the city.

The HUUB is bringing people together to build social and civic connections in the city of Orange. Like many other cities recovering from disinvestment, there is a deep sense of loss from reduced economic opportunities, historical trauma, increased police presence, disjointed communities, and an overall lack of representation in Orange. The loss of social cohesion within the community means the only force tying people together is a shared sense of hopelessness. On top of this, after a year of social distancing and lock downs due to COVID-19, people's need to be together, to be social, and to build connections is stronger than ever.

Everything the HUUB does aims at addressing these issues by building relationships and strengthening the city's social, civic, and physical infrastructures. We love our neighbors and know how much passion, excitement, and talent there is in our city. We are working to connect and lift those assets and your support helps us continue to do that. Thank you!