June Farmer has a song for everything.
She has songs for grief, songs for Sunday mornings, songs for the kids she teaches to cook from scratch in Marin City. She and her fiance built a 120-song playlist in one night, just sending tracks back and forth until they knew each other. She has Curtis Mayfield for when she needs to feel seen. Nancy Wilson for the girl she used to be. Gospel for when she needs something she can’t fully name.
June has been part of the Climigration Network’s Grassroots Leader of Community Practice for years, and when she talks about what keeps her going, she keeps coming back to the same idea: not one thing, but a menu. A range of options. Something you can reach into depending on what the day is asking of you.
"Every day your mind needs something different," she says. "Your body might need something different. Find the help that's needed within the toolbox that can help encourage you through."
June carries the spirit of the Grassroots Mutual Mental Healthcare Toolbox. Songs, recipes, books, poems, researched resources, member stories, a collection for people to come back to when the work gets heavy.
June lives in Marin City, on the edge of the Bay Area, in a community that watches the water rise. She fights to be in rooms where too many decisions get made without the people of Marin City. She sits on the flood advisory board and traveled to climate displacement retreats, watching other people take credit for community-built work.
Despite this, she continues to show up. What keeps her going is the very thing she tries to pour into the children with the Sankofa Youth Club: I see you. And that work echoes the very name of the organization. Sankofa is a word meaning to encourage people to learn from the past to inform the future.
“It only takes a minute to say that to somebody,” she explains. “But it’s never said.” So, she says it. She gives the children hugs. She buys them aprons so they look like professional chefs. She teaches them how to make pie crust from scratch, make tea cakes and pineapple upside down cakes, and how to peel potatoes to make French fries.
They are learning and fractions through measuring cups and spoons. We know how important it is to measure ingredient fractions in a mixing cup. She also plays music, always and we always have a dance break.
June believes care is specific. It shows up in what someone hands you, what they say out loud, how they make you feel like you matter right now.
That is what June wants people to find when they open the Toolbox.
"I want people to take whatever they need," she says. "Some days I bake. Some days I listen to blues or country or soul music. Some days it's Christian with some oldies and then some days I just want to put on vinyl and be in it. Having a vehicle that can drive you to different needs on different days is so important."
She also wants people to rest, especially those of us who have been conditioned to believe our value is tied to our output.
“It’s okay to rest. That’s what a lot of us don’t do, and we get burnt out.”
So rest. Dance without restriction. Make cornbread from scratch. Send someone a song to let them know you’re thinking of them.
June Farmer is a community organizer, food educator, and founder of the Sankofa Youth Club in Marin City, California. She is a member of the Climigration Network's Grassroots Leader Community of Practice.