Each month, Thurston Community Media (TCMedia)’s Mission Nonprofit connects with local organizations and agencies that positively impact our communities. In March 2024, Mission Nonprofit host Deborah Vinsel sat down with Cindy Corrie, board of directors president, and Therese Saliba, board member, for the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice.
The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice was created to continue the work of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old peace activist from Olympia who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer during a nonviolent direct action protecting the home of a Palestinian family from demolition. According to their website, the Rachel Corrie Foundation, “Conducts and supports programs that foster connections between people, that build understanding, respect, and appreciation for differences, and that promote cooperation within and between local and global communities.”
“She was always just a really interesting person, you knew when she came through the door, particularly as an older person, it was going to be an interesting time,” shares Corrie about her daughter, Rachel. “She had a great sense of humor. She had a passion for finding meaningful things to do with her life as she got older. After 9/11 and was at Evergreen, she turned to trying to figure out why that happened and I just think the community had an enormous impact on Rachel there were peace groups that were formed at the time…she connected with them.”
“We’ve continued Rache’s vision to create a sister city with Rafah,” shares Therese. “We’ve maintained that relationship with Rachel’s vision and had a number of Gaza-related projects including Ramadan soccer tournaments, cultural events, we’ve had exchanges with scholars and young students from there, people have also visited.”
Projects of the Rachel Corrie Foundation include the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project, Olympia Arab Festival, Gaza Projects, Peace Works and educational scholarships. “I think education permeates all the work that we do,” shares Cindy. “We have scholarship programs that are really important to us. The Corrie Memorial Scholarship at Evergreen is very special to us, our relationship with Evergreen is very special to us.” They also have a scholarship for Birzeit University on the West Bank that were for woman, she adds, and they are continuing to work with Birzeit and hoping to bring a scholar from Gaza there.
For more information, watch the full video above or visit the Rachel Corrie Foundation website.
You can watch Mission Nonprofit on channel 22 on Sundays at 3:30 p.m., Tuesdays at 1:30 p.m., Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., and Saturdays at 10 a.m. You can also watch on TCMedia website, Video On-Demand or our Roku channel. To learn more about what TCMedia does, visit the Thurston Community Media YouTube channel or the TC Media website and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
