The Black Youth Scholarship Fund
In Honor of Root Co-Founder Angela Berkfield’s Legacy
Donate to The Black Youth Scholarship Fund by selecting “Youth Scholarship Fund” in the “Use this donation for” dropdown at the link below:
To get involved in one of our Black Youth Scholarship committees email blackyouthscholarship@therootsjc.org
Thank you for helping us Celebrate Angela Berkfield’s Birthday and Legacy at the Black Youth Scholarship Fund Kick Off!
A FUNdraiser supporting The Black Youth Scholarship Fund!
On Saturday, June 21st, we gathered at the Kiwanis Shelter in Living Memorial Park to celebrate the birthday and legacy of The Root’s late co-founder, Angela Berkfield. The event served as the kickoff FUNdraiser for The Black Youth Scholarship (BYS), a fund dedicated to supporting and uplifting Black youth in our community.
The evening was filled with music, dancing, shared food, and deep community connection. Friends old and new came together to honor Angela’s memory in the spirit of joy, justice, and collective care. The BYS Committee shared the vision for the scholarship over the next year.
Thanks to the generosity of attendees, we raised over $500—unlocking a $500 matching gift from Post Oil Solutions. We’re grateful to everyone who showed up, shared a dish, contributed to the fund, and helped carry forward Angela’s legacy of love and liberation.
About Angela Berkfield
Angela Berkfield was a visionary, writer, activist, movement builder, friend, and co-founder of The Root Social Justice Center. Her legacy is honored through The Root’s Black Youth Scholarship Fund.
The Black Youth Scholarship Fund was created to honor Angela’s legacy because she worked hard in her life to address systemic racism and to shift resources to communities of color, especially Black folks. This scholarship responds to a critical gap Angela and her fellow Root co-founders saw again and again in their work to actively dismantle white supremacy and center Blackness. The gap of disproportionately Black students in Vermont not graduating and/or having enough resources to continue their education. Though we know that this scholarship will support just a portion of what Youth may need—the message we are sending is even more powerful.
We continue to carry on Angela’s legacy and honor her name to remind folks of her dedication to racial justice and shifting resources to create equity that is needed for everyone’s survival.
Learn more about Angela and her impact in this tribute in The Commons and in her Obituary.
Honoring my friend and co-conspirator: a reflection on Angela Berkfield’s legacy from Shela Linton
A little history about Angela and The Root
Angela Berkfield was one of the cofounders of The Root Social Justice Center in 2013. As part of the original collective members she volunteered her time behind the scenes helping to create policies and systems for The Root, program support, space upkeep—including keeping our plants alive!—designed events and forums, figured out administration and operations and supported and organized volunteers to name a few. Angela didn’t stop there. She facilitated forums, brought people into the organization, and helped to establish our relationships with donors, and brought in grants to provide much needed programming and events when we became a non profit in 2017).
Angela was a racial justice advocate constantly working to create and shift equity to people of color. She did this through her individual work addressing systems of harm, examining class and wealth, having challenging conversations with her family and friends, participating in racial justice trainings, educating herself in unpacking white supremacy culture in her life, and consulting folks on how to be anti racist and have a more equitable environment. Angela even wrote a book Parenting 4 Social Justice, supporting parents in how to address and support their children in showing up for social justice.
Angela gave her money, time and resources to bring the Root into this vision. At the end of Angela’s time at The Root we had already made a conscious decision to shift The Root to being a BIPOC led racial justice organization centering blackness. Angela was slowly leaving the Root as she was supporting me in the final steps of transition. Her time abruptly ended with her diagnosis.
A little about my friend
Angela was more than a Root colleague. We were friends. She was one of my best friends. She was part of my children’s lives, loved my parents, had turkey day events together and even right before she was diagnosed she was helping me to care for a family member.
When I met Angela she was finishing up her time at SIT and working on a community project addressing aspects of racism, class and wealth in the food systems. I participated in this project. It was during this time that I would slowly get to know Angela- and grow to love her.
Angela really showed up for me. She was my confidant. She would listen to me for hours about my trials and tribulations of racism and being a poor black single mom, and what I endured on a daily basis. I probably cried more with Angela then any other friend, because she was always there. We were always doing something together.
Angela got it! She really walked the walk. Soon in our friendship and professional lives she would be witness to my experiences of racism. A front row seat. It would happen in the community, during trainings, and with people in positions of power. Angela witnesses it all. And through it all Angela never veered away. She leaned in, she put her body on the line and she gave up her own privilege and resources to hold folks accountable. Sometimes even resulting in lost relationships and income. Angela was truly my racial accountability partner-conspiratory.
When Angela created ACT- Advocacy Consulting and Training I became part of her trainer team. Angela and I would travel to schools, daycares and organizations spending hours in the car talking about all the issues society faced, talked about the dreams we had for ourselves, and created the visions for the things to come next. Angela was always forward thinking and always trying to figure out how she could use her privilege to see these visions come to flourishion.
A few years later I joined Angela with others in another one of her collaborative creations, Equity Solutions, a consulting business working to create equity and to address systems of class and wealth. The team worked very closely together, traveling all around the state and even landing a gig in North Carolina helping organizations address systems of harm, create more equity and address racism.
The reason why I share all of this is not to give a run down of our resumes, but to have folks understand how intertwined I was with Angela and how I got to experience the joy of having such a great friend in my life in so many ways. I share this with you so you understand who Angela was—a racial justice advocate—and give a tiny snippet so you can see why we are creating The Black Youth Scholarship Fund in honor of Angela’s legacy.
