Lauren Reichelt

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Lauren Reichelt kicked off her career as an accidental community organizer in Tokyo, assisting Rabbi Michael J. Schudrich to organize holiday and Shabbat gatherings for travelers, students, and individuals without a Japanese Sabbath home. Gradually, Rabbi Schudrich began to rely on Lauren to help resettle Jewish congregants fleeing hostile Muslim and Eastern Bloc nations. Lauren helped the rabbi to obtain visas, locate work, and acculturate those in transit to Japanese society. In the process of organizing festive meals, she learned that cooking and creating together helps to heal spiritual wounds caused by trauma. Lauren earned her MA in Tokyo in Comparative Culture from Sophia University, a Jesuit school. She taught English and American Culture in a Japanese High School.

Lauren returned the United States in 1990. She taught preschool in Northern New Mexico for two years, before reverting again to accidental organizing. When her daughter was born in Espanola, NM, she realized her community did not have a public playground. She convinced neighbors to pitch in and build. Children named the playground “Venessa's Hideaway” after a nine-year old diabetic girl who was murdered by a heroin addict ransacking her home for syringes. Venessa's mother, Annette, became the spokeswoman for the effort. In time, Lauren and Annette were joined by other parents of children lost to violence, DWI or overdose. They began organizing their community to build treatment centers, clinics, and daycares. Lauren was hired by Rio Arriba County in 1994 “to do stuff in villages.” Lauren and her colleagues developed the first county-run Health and Human Services Department in the state of New Mexico, giving Rio Arriba's indigenous populations a voice in their own health care delivery. She again discovered, in the process of organizing, that bringing people together to work with their hands helps to overcome spiritual wounds.

Today, Lauren is director of Rio Arriba's Health and Human Services Department where she oversees jail-based substance abuse treatment programs, DWI prevention and treatment, and health care planning activities, as well as intensive case management services for IV Drug Users, high-risk pregnant women, homeless people, and frequent visitors to the ER. She has worked with mothers of murdered children, substance abusers, and refugees. She uses organizing as a tool to help heal wounds resulting from historical trauma. Lauren blogs for Daily Kos and ePluribus Media as TheFatLadySings, and has coordinated a weekly health care series for both sites under the cover of her moniker since 2007.

(Photo courtesy of Mike Shriver.)