BUSTH MDiv Students Win Second Place in Innovate@BU New Venture Competition
This article featuring student Kimberly Bress (MDiv’21) was published by Daily Free Press on April 15, 2021. As of April 20, Kimberly and project partners Cindy Rassi (MDiv’22) and Maria Fernandes-Dominique won second place in the Innovate@BU New Venture Competition for a prize of $8,000 to start their non-profit Turn In. Reach Out. The following is an excerpt only. Please click here to read the original article.
Innovate@BU hosts 21st New Venture Competition for social impacts
By Divya Sood
Kimberly Bress, a master’s student in the BU School of Theology, taps into her eight years of living in a Buddhist monastery to provide access to meditation resources through directing Turn In. Reach Out.: a grassroots organization providing social and emotional health support for Black, Indigenous and people of color communities and promoting racial justice.
She said this work is an extension of her own commitment to “equity and belonging in American Buddhist practice spaces,” which she said are largely white-dominated.
“During my time at the monastery, I struggled a lot with issues of equity and belonging based on my experience as an individual with disability and as a woman,” Bress said. “I had a first-hand experience of marginalization and I realized that … people of color experienced unique challenges.”