Orinda Community, Businesses Take Stand Against Hate With Grassroots Campaign
ORINDA (KPIX 5) -- Residents of the East Bay suburb of Orinda have begun a grassroots campaign, urging shopkeepers and restaurant owners to display signs in their windows that say, "Everyone is welcome here, everyone belongs."
The campaign is made up mostly of women who say it's time for their community to make a statement of love in an era when hate has become emboldened. While the campaign has been going on for three years, the push for signs in shops followed a recent incident where a Muslim woman was pushed inside an Orinda store.
"It was like a shove across, shoving me out of the way," said Dr. Nazia Sheriff, an American woman of the Muslim faith and pediatrician who lives in Orinda and recently opened up a clinic in town. She said the man was much larger than her and pushed her in front of her young son.
"It was very deliberate," said Sheriff. "Lots of glares of hatred, as well to the point where other customers were just shaking their heads at the whole incident."
While she was not physically injured, Sheriff's Facebook post got the attention of others on the social network, including the Lamorinda Diversity group and also the Lamorinda Families group. (Lamorinda is shorthand for the three neighboring cities of Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda.)
The neighbors decided to take action because they regarded the attack on Dr. Sheriff as an attack on the community as a whole.
The neighbors began walking around last week, handing out signs to shop owners at Loard's Ice Cream, Baja Cali Taqueria & Grill and Siam Orchid restaurant, which now prominently display the signs in their front windows.
"We are standing up to hate," said Sharon McGinnis-Girdlestone, owner of My Sustainable Table, a catering company based in Orinda. "We are saying, 'It's not okay here.'"
On Sunday, McGinnis-Girdlestone gathered more than a dozen community members to walk through the Theatre Square, posting signs at Saffron, an Indian restaurant, as well as cupcake shop Republic of Cake.
"Lamorinda does not have a reputation for diversity," said Rebecca Verity, an Orinda resident. "There are a lot of people who have said that we are an all-white community, that we are only a wealthy community. Neither of those things are true. And it's really, really important to me that we welcome everybody into our community because we all belong here."
Verity said a variety of community groups began holding candlelight vigils and making homemade signs about three years ago, just after the election of President Donald Trump. Every time someone was made to feel like they did not belong, the groups came together to loudly proclaim that the community has their back. They hope to inspire others to realize every little bit helps.
"That support that I received from all these wonderful women...I wanted everyone to feel that," said Sheriff. "And not be hesitant about visiting our local businesses in our community. We want this to be a stimulus for catapulting a much larger movement within our communities, within Lamorinda to start with, but within the greater Bay Area community at large."
Other groups involved in the campaign include the Orinda Progressive Action Alliance, the Orinda Junior Women's Club and Orinda Kids Unite to Support, said Verity. She acknowledges the nastiness could continue, but the community has a greater good in mind.
"Putting a sign up is not going to stop someone from being a bully, but saying over and over that we all are human may change some minds," Verity said. "And if it helps somebody feel more confident in themselves...somebody walk down the street without fear, somebody walk into a store knowing that store welcomes them, then we've done good in the world."
