Cecily Sailer

Writer & Creative Coach

Austin, TX

Stories about helpers, healing & social change

Cecily Sailer

Writer & Creative Coach

Austin, TX

Stories about helpers, healing & social change

It takes a village to address a housing crisis
The Covid-19 pandemic, and the economic downturn that followed, added a new layer to the nation’s housing and public health crisis as more Americans found it harder to make rent payments on time. A federal eviction moratorium and $46.5 billion in emergency rental assistance were meant to alleviate the problem, but by the end of August 2021, only about 11 percent of those funds had been distributed, and the moratorium had been nullified by the U.S.
Resolve Magazine
Fighting for East Oakland
Candice Elder started The East Oakland Collective (EOC) six years ago to assemble like-minded residents wanting to address generations of racial and economic inequality in the historically black and increasingly gentrified area of Oakland. To do this, the organization applies a holistic approach — providing regular meals to the area’s low-income and unhoused population, advocacy against invasive urban development, and lending circles to build wealth within the community.
Resolve Magazine
Feeding and fighting for the homeless in Denver
Janet Matzen wakes up early on Saturdays to cook enough food for as many as 150 people living on the streets of downtown Denver. “You know what they say?” Matzen asks. “It’s the best food in Denver.” The smells rising from her trays of casserole, potatoes, and curry leave little room for doubt. On Sunday mornings, Matzen drives her home-cooked trays of food, folding tables, and assortment of crock pots from her apartment in Lakewood, 15 minutes away.
Resolve Magazine
Profiles from the Pandemic: Derrick Soo
Derrick Soo makes it his full-time, unpaid job to improve conditions for Oakland’s homeless population. For the past six years, he’s worked with food pantries, nonprofits, city officials, lawyers, and health care institutions to bring more dignity and basic rights to people experiencing homelessness in his community.
Resolve Magazine
Watch: ‘He helps everybody all the time.’
Before the people of Pueblo, Colorado, came to know him as Pastor Paul, they knew him as a trouble-maker — abusing alcohol and drugs, driving under the influence, getting into fights. He was on probation in 2003 when a dispute with another man sent Paul Montoya into a rage. He went to the man’s house while drunk, beat him badly, stole a car and $300, and took off, hiding out in a friend’s junkyard.
Resolve Magazine
‘This society needs to be more compassionate.’
Joan Duvall-Flynn is chair and co-founder of the Trauma Informed Education Coalition (TIEC), a group of social workers, psychologists, and educators who study trauma and provide trauma-informed training for a variety of audiences. She spoke with Resolve Magazine about trauma-informed awareness, the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACEs), and current efforts to bring trauma education to more disciplines and professions.
Resolve Magazine
A holistic approach to HIV care and prevention
On a March morning in Homestead, Pennsylvania, just southeast of Pittsburgh, the Allies for Health + Wellbeing mobile testing van parks outside the Rainbow Kitchen food bank, where people in need of groceries stop by to fortify their pantries. “Hey, can I offer you a tote for your stuff?” says Allies community advocate DeVar Ferguson to a man carrying plastic bags filled with food.
Resolve Magazine
Protecting Voting Access in a Texas-Sized Election
Despite a deadly global pandemic, voters across the country have turned out in record numbers to cast their ballots in a historic election. In Harris County, Texas, local election officials have worked diligently to expand safe voter access in the state’s most populous county, which is home to nearly 5 million residents, half of which are registered voters.
findhelp Films

About

Cecily Sailer

Writing

Coaching

Editing

Manuscript Consultation

Tarot Reading

Cecily Sailer is a creative coach, writer, and founder of Typewriter Tarot, a project that helps people relate to their creativity more holistically, — through magic, ritual, and intuition. Prior to launching Typewriter Tarot, Cecily worked for 10 years in creative arts nonprofits, and also wrote freelance pieces about books and culture for The Dallas Morning News, The Texas Observer, Austin Fit Magazine, and Texas Monthly Online. From 2019 to 2021, Cecily worked as a writer and reporter for Resolve Magazine (now findhelp Films), reporting on people and organizations nationwide working for social change in their communities.