The last time I was at the RFC office I found a soup can that expired in 2020.

A bit of context: after about 20 years in the same office suite in the Eastworks building in Easthampton, the RFC is moving our office this summer. We’re not going far, just across the hall to a new suite in the same building. (We WILL have a slightly altered mailing address, which we’ll share with our community once the move is complete; stay tuned.)

While it’s definitely not a long distance move, it does mean going through everything we’ve accumulated over the past two decades (spoiler alert: it’s a lot of stuff) and either packing it or getting rid of it.

To make things a bit more complicated, I last worked full time in my office in March of 2020. On March 13th, 2020, I sent an email to the Board letting them know that we were closing the RFC office “for two weeks” and pivoting to working remotely; we hoped we’d be able to safely return to the office by the end of the month. If we only knew….

Instead, we remained fully remote through the end of 2020 and the majority of the RFC staff still work remotely. Our bookkeeper is back working in the office and we’ve occasionally met to discuss projects or work collaboratively but on most days, we’re a remote team. Moving to the new office will help us work more nimbly together in an ongoing hybrid/remote capacity.

Now that preparations for the move are well underway, I’m spending a lot of time in my office packing files, shredding documents we no longer need and sorting through the random things that accumulate when you have a tendency to keep things. In my case, that included a very expired can of chicken noodle soup. Fortunately, I also found (or rediscovered) some treasures, including:

• A vinyl record of a script written by my grandfather Abel Meeropol under the pen name Lewis Allen (read by him and my grandmother, Anne Meeropol)

• A backstage pass from a production of the RFC’s Celebrate the Children of Resistance performance, co-produced with the Middle East Children's Alliance 25 years ago in Berkeley. (The RFC has produced a number of Celebrate performances over the years. These events honor Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's legacy of resistance while celebrating the courage of current activists. (Learn more here.)

• A stash of old publicity photos of my dad, RFC Founder Robert Meeropol, from his days on the public speaking circuit

• An ancient VCR and a box of VHS tapes of various news programs and my dad’s speeches about his parents’ case from the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

• An eclectic collection of art gifted to us over the years from supporters, artists, and current and former beneficiaries

• My dad’s file of “Important RFC documents” which includes the original paperwork confirming the RFC’s 501 c 3 status and other important documents related to our founding
• A HUGE banner wrapped in brown paper; we’re not sure where it’s from or what it was for but the staff agreed to unwrap it in the new space once we’re completed most of the move. It’s serving as a mystery and motivation at the moment. I promise to share a photo once we unwrap it.

Moving is a lot of work but I’ll admit I’ve been enjoying sorting through the items we’ve saved over the past 3+ decades. With the RFC marking our 35th anniversary this fall, it’s fun to revisit some of the important and trivial items from our past and find a home for them in our new space. The can of soup may not have made the cut, but most of the other treasures are coming with us to our new offices.

We’ll let you know once we’ve settled in our new space. I look forward to making memories and collecting items there that help tell our story for years to come.