Volunteer Spotlight: Porshea Patterson
by Heather Linde
Originally written for Issue 17 of the W.A.N.D. in 2018
If you have ever read Fandom Forward’s racial justice reports and articles, then you are familiar with the work of volunteer Porshea Patterson. She provides toolkits and research reports on racial justice, and occasionally writes articles about how it affects other issues like literacy or girls’ education. Porshea can also be found staffing the Fandom Forward booth at events such as ALA, BookCon, and LeakyCon.
Porshea helped out a lot at LeakyCon 2018. She co-ran the booth with Janae Phillips, organizing and keeping inventory. She loved the camaraderie that she felt there, hearing about the panels that fellow Fandom Forward friends were participating in. Fandom Forward was located near some other great booths, such as Uplift, Wizards in Space, and Lauren Fairweather. Porshea enjoyed meeting other Fandom Forward members and fellow Potterheads, and it did not hurt that she was able to buy more Fandom Forward merch! In the future, she hopes to be able to better engage with people from behind the booth, and has a lot of ideas about how to help Fandom Forward accomplish this.
Volunteering at the Fandom Forward booth has helped her overcome her shier moments and make connections that she would not have been able to make on her own. It was here that she witnessed how much personal engagement means to others and had some touching experiences with other attendees. Overall, she considers the vendor booth a resounding success.
This fantastic Ravenclaw joined Fandom Forward in April of 2017 because she wanted to effect change in the world. She liked that there was a group of people who were making a difference using the social messages behind her favorite fandom. Fandom Forward made her feel as if this goal were accessible (it helps that Fandom Forward is full of wonderful, socially aware people as well ☺). She feels that in a world where so many issues seem overwhelming, Fandom Forward stands as an accessible gateway to progressive activism.
Outside of Fandom Forward, Porshea is a Public Opinion Research Associate for The Opportunity Agenda, which is a social justice communications lab that assists its partners in developing strategies to change hearts and minds towards supporting the progressive movement. A lot of her work revolves around engaging with advocates and researchers within the immigration, racial justice, creative change, and economic opportunity fields, learning from their efforts and research, and then working with colleagues to build a messaging strategy based on the knowledge available. Clearly, she is passionate about justice and social issues outside of her work at Fandom Forward.
In her free time, she enjoys traveling and reading young adult and fantasy books. She also eats her way through the numerous cuisines available in New York City—it helps that there are Pokestops all over, which feeds her Pokemon Go addiction.
Porshea loves volunteering with Fandom Forward because she loves learning about all of the amazing things our chapters and volunteer staff do, and seeing the high level of engagement Fandom Forward receives through its campaigns. For her, the campaign #WithoutHermione was a personal favorite. Volunteering with Fandom Forward has afforded her numerous opportunities to make Potterhead friends within and without the organization, increasing her sense of community and ideas about what can be achieved when people unite under one central idea.
When asked why other people should volunteer for Fandom Forward, she had this to say: “If they value the social morals that the books inspire, and want to join a fabulous bunch of people being the change in the world, then they should join [Fandom Forward].”
We are so glad to have Porshea Patterson on the Fandom Forward team. She is friendly, always willing to help out, and a great asset to the organization. Porshea is full of ideas and is always working to help make Fandom Forward even better. We are excited to see what else she is able to accomplish in her volunteering life, and in her everyday life.