Project Thrive - Deconstructing the Bootstraps Mentality
Event Information
About this event
Bootstrapping, or building yourself from the ground up with nothing but the money in your pocket and a little luck is a harmful myth that imparts personal ownership for circumstances and economic outcomes. For many that come from minority communities, this myth can be destructive and harmful when generational wealth and stable and equitable wages and careers have historically been out of reach.
Join Minority Veterans of America for this conversation with minority veteran leaders from across our community to discuss the myth of "pulling yourself up by bootstraps" and how it impacts minority communities.
The conversation will include:
-Defining the bootstraps mentality and how it breaks our community
-Discussion of how minority veteran leaders overcame the bootstraps mentality and myth to get to where they are today
-Sharing of resources and insights into using mentorship and networking to overcome the challenges minority veterans face in the workplace and world
This panel is part of a series of discussions hosted by Project Thrive, the Minority Vets economic empowerment program working to advance the career and economic interests of the minority veteran community.
Organizer Minority Veterans of America
Organizer of Project Thrive - Deconstructing the Bootstraps Mentality
Founded in November 2017, the Minority Veterans of America (MVA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that was designed to change the narrative of the American military veteran. The team of MVA works to build a community around the unique identities that veterans hold, outside of their identity as a military servicemember.
The primary underrepresented groups that MVA serves are: veterans of color, womxn, LGBTQ, and religious and non-religious minorities. We believe that through bringing these four minority groups together, we can build a veteran community that encompasses veterans from a wide range of diverse backgrounds and experiences.
MVA was founded by two University of Washington Husky veterans, Lindsay Church and Katherine Pratt. Church and Pratt first began their work in 2014 through the Husky United Military Veterans where they built a Diversity Committee that celebrated the underrepresented groups within the student veteran community at the University of Washington.
Since 2014, Church and Pratt have collaborated to lead the student veteran population at the UW, Church through her role in the Student Veteran Life office, and Pratt as the President of the student veteran organization, Husky Veterans. Today, they partner to build and grow MVA in order to celebrate the identities that they both feel that they hold that make them underrepresented in the veteran community.
