What do you do when you read an NPR news article that begins like this? “The Department of Justice plans to sue Texas after Governor Greg Abbott refused to remove razor wire and buoys installed by the state to deter migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. Medics say the barriers are severely injuring people, including…

Beautiful 6-year-old Emerson has been facing challenges since the moment she was born and had her very first seizure. For the next 3 1⁄2 years, Emerson’s parents worked tirelessly to find ways to keep her seizures under control, and – after many treatments, surgeries, and setbacks – they finally are! But, Emerson was also born…

We at Together Rising believe in the right of all people to not only strive, but to thrive. At the same time, we know that transgender people across the country face levels of discrimination and harassment that limit their access to many of the rights and freedoms essential to building happy, healthy, and fulfilled lives. …

These days, it feels like we can’t go more than a few days without hearing the news of another gun related tragedy. It can be easy to feel hopeless, scared, and numb. When Dr. Sonya Anderson, our Executive Director, shared last month during #GunViolenceAwarenessMonth about how gun violence has impacted her own immediate family, we…

Imagine for a moment that you are a single mom of three kids. You have no other family. You are also a full-time paramedic and in school full-time working towards your Masters in Literature and Creative Writing, with dreams of becoming a college professor. You have recently come off of low-income housing after months of…

Meet Lisa and her little one, Dakota!  Note: The following paragraphs mention pregnancy loss and infertility. Lisa dreamed of being a mother throughout her entire life. After several miscarriages,fertility specialists told her that she’d never have biological children. Lisa felt crushed. She eventually learned to accept her diagnosis—but with tremendous grief and a sense of…

The fight for bodily autonomy and gender-affirming care continues in Tennessee, as a ruling earlier this July allowed a ban on gender-affirming healthcare services for minors to go into effect. This ban has left many families scrambling for options and unsure of where to turn. Though the final ruling is still pending, we are not…

“My son is a fighter…he makes everyone smile.”  That’s what Benji’s mom wrote to us when she began to describe her 14-year-old son. Despite long-term complications since birth, including a diagnosis of cerebral palsy and receiving over 25 surgeries to manage abnormal amounts of fluid in his brain, Benji’s family has always figured out a…

Imagine for a moment that you have just left everything you have ever known – not by choice – but as a means of survival. The journey to escape has cost you so much already and if you are able to survive it, you arrive at the shores of a new country and at the…

“I feel “sister’ed up” in a way that shines light on my path ahead and helps me baby step forward…” wrote Tessa, a recent grant recipient. We first met Tessa through her lifelong friend, Bridget. Despite the ocean that lay between them, Bridget and Tessa couldn’t be closer. “It is one of the deepest, truest…