Here at CLAP, 2025 was a year of beginnings, endings, and remembering.

Like so many in our networks and communities, we spent the year listening to, tending to, & releasing our disabled grief as climate and environmental emergencies, genocide and war, escalating state violence, COVID and other pandemics, the deaths of dear beloveds, and so many other kinds of hidden and invisibilized continued. 

Two of CLAP’s earliest and most consistent supporters - Patty Berne and Alice Wong - joined the ancestors this year. We deeply feel their losses within CLAP and our broader disabled communities. Both Patty and Alice provided essential support to CLAP‘s development, vision, and visibility over the years, both individually and through the projects they each directed, Sins Invalid and the Disability Visibility Project. Their legacies and memories live on through CLAP’s mission, vision, approach, work, and people.

One of the ways was through a September grief and art mask making workshop we facilitated in partnership with the Disability Cultural Center and Senior & Disability Action. More than 100 people attended in-person and online, many of whom shared decorated masks with us for our future COVID-19 Memorial Community Art Installation (made possible with the generous support of Alice Wong and the Disability Visibility Project). Throughout 2025, our staff and steering committee members also provided bilingual grief care support to hundreds of people attending our mask workshop, Patty Berne’s community memorial, a Sins Invalid grief circle, and more.

We also continued building structure for our work to flourish, welcoming new part-time staff and steering committee members and raising more than $100,000 in new grants and donations from grassroots supporters, major donors, and values-aligned foundations; thanks to our beloved steering committee member Naomi Ortiz, CLAP received a 2025 Disability Futures Fellow Nominated Award. Through it all, we grieved for and with each other - holding space, lighting candles, making art, checking in, and slowing down. 

In 2026, we want to keep holding space, lighting candles, making art, checking in, and slowing down with you. Next year will bring even more opportunities to connect through CLAP’s Grief & Art Mask Making Workshops, Disabled Grief Circles, and upcoming Rapid Response Grief Support Events. Your tax-deductible donations pay for individual and grief care, art supplies, disability services, and more, allowing us to expand our reach to disabled grievers wherever they are. 

Wherever you are, we are sending you comfort and care, and look forward to reconnecting in the new year.

Warmly,

Elliot, India, Jung, & Opulence
The Collective Loss Adaptation Project (CLAP) Team