BE RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, RIGHT NOW

WHAT’S THE ZIP CODE PROJECT?

It’s an invitation to slow down and be right here, right now.

Because…

Maybe you’re a student.

Or a parent.

Or a partner.

Or a friend.

We’re all somebody, to someone.

But at the end of the day, we always come back to ourselves. And often, we find that we’ve run through time, rushing against the clock, finding ourselves too worn out to do anything meaningful for ourselves. Sound familiar? Me, too.

For the last five years, I’ve studied the concept of home. I’ve read and spoken and written about home, and I’ve thought - boy, have I thought - about home. I’ve attempted to boil it down and understand it at a deeper, more foundational level.

But the reality is that home is different to everybody. Where we live, with whom we live, and how we live all impact the way we experience home. And one of the only through-lines is that home is deeply connected to place. When I think of my previous addresses, forgotten emotions and feelings of nostalgia creep up on me, and I find myself back at that home, back in time with a prior iteration of myself.

IT IS THE MEMORY OF A PLACE WHICH BRINGS ME BACK.

But in my day-to-day life, I often find myself too exhausted to feel those emotions in the here-and-now. It is only when I stop to breathe that I am able to recognize the beauty and the blessing of the current moment - of the place I find myself in right now.

If these feelings resonate with you, I encourage you to stick around. Explore these pages - because I believe that together, we can cultivate that sense of place in our everyday lives. I believe that we can find a home, and all the feelings that come along with it - belonging, togetherness, community, self-worth, groundedness, balance. I believe we can find our footing - right here, right now.

I’m glad you’re here, friend.

I’M A COMMUNITY ORGANIZER WITH A MASTER’S DEGREE IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION —

and I believe that the past can tell us a whole lot about the present, and the future. here’s how the zip code project came to be…

ORIGINS

When I started college, I thought I would study Political Science. Throughout middle and high school, I had researched the history of immigration to the United States, and I wanted more than anything to be an immigration lawyer - to help individuals and families create a new home in a new place.

But as soon as I started my first Religious Studies class, I fell in love. In that class, I seemed to be asking entirely different questions - about the past, and about my own past. I seemed to be asking the questions truly at the heart of the immigration process: how does one create a new home?

Against what may have been better judgment from a hireability standpoint, I took a leap of faith and decided to continue my studies of religion. I began doing independent anthropological research with religious communities in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis - St. Paul, and in Peru during my semester away. By the time I graduated, I had written 150 pages attempting to find the meaning of home and to understand how to create one.

In graduate school, I continued this work, but with a new set of lenses. Studying from afar as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, I dove into the history of the place in which I found myself. I studied the history of Minnesota, attempting to uncover the pieces which had been tucked away by the official narrative one finds in history books. I studied the history of the communities Indigenous to this land, and I studied the history of the historically Black Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul. And I began to reclaim this place as one of deep complexity - of communities finding meaning even in the midst of the most terrible moments in time.

As I read, I stumbled upon a book which had been written based on research conducted around postal codes. The researchers studied instances of neighborly actions and their differences based on the postal codes individuals lived within. Through the study, it became clear that where someone lived was deeply associated with how someone lived.

And so, I began to see my little neighborhood as mine, a place I had agency in. And I began to see the Twin Cities as a whole as a greater version of a neighborhood - a place I had agency in.

Our neighborhood, our place - our home.

I would love to hear about the places that feel like home to you! Email me at thezipcodeproject@substack.com :)

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