By Frederick Joseph
So many people ask me what they can do, how to push back, how to make a dent in the weight of this Trump administration, this era, this slow-moving catastrophe we keep waking up inside of. I tell them the same thing every time: Decide.
Decide to do something. Anything. Because there is no single road to resistance—there are many. Some march, some write, some knock on doors, some feed the people left hungry by policies made in boardrooms far from their tables. I’m offering one path right now. Towards a woman who can use our help.
She is sitting on a cot in a room that was never meant to be lived in, but she is here, and so is her son. He is curled against her side, his small fingers tracing circles on the blanket draped over both of them. The cot is thin, the air sharp with the scent of bleach, but it is clean, and tonight, they are inside. She holds a Styrofoam cup of coffee, lukewarm now, but warm enough. She takes small sips, lets the heat settle in her chest.
The television hums in the corner, a panel of men in suits speaking in clipped, certain tones about budgets, about deficits, about what America deserves. Someone mentions community programs, the ones that are disappearing, the ones that could have helped her before she got here. The words are distant, like weather reports from another city. She knows better than to listen too closely.
She glances down at her son. His eyelashes flutter against his cheeks. He is asleep. She smooths a hand over his hair, breathes in the familiar scent of him, the one thing in her life that has not been taken, restructured, or deemed unworthy of funding.
Tomorrow, she will try again. She will call the numbers on the papers folded in her bag, she will ask for what they need. And someone, somewhere, will say yes. She believes this. She has to.
She cradles the cup in her hands and holds onto warmth where she can find it.
I think about this woman often. Not because I know her name, but because I have known her shape—sitting upright on a cot not meant for long-term use, pressing a child to her side, listening to the murmur of policy debates that will never consider her. I have spent a lifetime visiting shelters, both to volunteer and to receive help. I know what it is to wait, to hope, to scan a room for proof that someone, somewhere, still cares.
This is why, for the sixth year in a row, I am raising $20,000 in honor of Women’s History Month for our Lift Women Fund through my non-profit, We Have Stories. Every year, we come together to provide women in shelters with what they need to live with dignity: warm clothing, blankets, undergarments, towels, cookware, body care items—things that should not be luxuries, but so often are. This fund is not about charity in the way some people think of it. It is about survival. It is about ensuring that women who have been pushed to the margins are not left to disappear there.
And I cannot think of a year more urgent than this one.
Donald Trump is not just a man; he is a symbol of a country that has, time and again, forgotten women like the one I described. In fact, they have tried to destroy her. We are living in an era where policies are being rewritten not to protect the vulnerable, but to erase them. Shelters are underfunded. Assistance programs are cut. The people who claim to care—the ones who post slogans and call themselves allies—too often look away when it matters most. They shake their heads at the news but do not ask what they can do. They forget that every act of indifference, every silent witness, makes them complicit.
I have seen how easy it is to rationalize not giving. Someone else will. It won’t make a difference. I have my own problems. And so people move through the world untouched, never having to think about the women in shelters, the mothers holding their children through the night, the quiet war of simply making it to tomorrow. They do not see, so they do not act.
But seeing is a choice. And so is showing up.
Three dollars. That is all it takes to make a difference. Many people would not bend down to pick up three dollars from the street, and yet here, now, it could mean the difference between warmth and a meal, between dignity and despair. It is not about grand gestures. It is about proof—proof that empathy is not extinct, that people still look out for one another, that we are more than just a nation of callous policies and forgotten promises.
We are at $3,300 raised, and if even 10% of the people reading this gave $3, we would meet our goal.
I think about the woman on the cot. I imagine her standing, shaking out her blanket, tossing the cold coffee into a trash can. I imagine her stepping outside, the wind sharp against her skin, looking up at a sky that has never promised her much. Maybe she is waiting for something—some sense that people still care.
My belief is that care is me—and that care is you.
This is not about charity. It is about resisting the kind of world Donald Trump and his ilk are building—one where cruelty is policy, where the most vulnerable are disposable, where looking away becomes second nature. Fighting fascism is not always loud. Sometimes, it is as simple as refusing to let people be forgotten.
Frederick Joseph is a Yonkers, NY raised two-time New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. His work is available at https://substack.com/@frederickjoseph
