01/05/2024
In Memoriam: Stephanie Sleight
With an intensely heavy heart and sadness, I share with you that our beloved Stephanie has pass yesterday, Sunday 29th April. Our Alinker team and community has lost an invaluable friend and colleague.
Exactly 4 years ago, exact to the date she passed, she joined the Alinker team. She was the 100th Crowdfunder to complete her own Alinker campaign. She joined our Alinker team and worked with people on completing 146 more campaigns, now 246 in total.
Stephanie, a proud Lakota woman, a warrior, water protector and friend beyond friends, shared her wisdom, knowledge and heart with such warmth and love, it has changed us all.
Our Alinker team mostly meets online, because we all live in very different places, but I was so lucky to meet Stephanie, spent 3 weeks with her last December.
I drove down to Arizona to care for her in a time that she needed some spirit and good company. She needed the care, but being in company with her and feeling the magnitude of her being, the joy, her generosity, sheer love, her laughter, her beautiful beadwork, she was such a gifted artist too, has given me one of the biggest joys in my life. She made me feel I belong and am loved. (continuos further down)
Jennifer (our customer service wiz) wrote:
Steph was many things in this life, to many people.
To me Steph was the wind, the birds, the owls, and the bear. She represented so many things. She was a deliverer of calmness, the soothing voice to a weary soul.
She was a fighter and a warrior indigenous woman. She represented all of earth and its beauty. She offered peace and love. She was an advocate for many especially for herself. I will carry her in a pocket in my soul, and if I ever see the bear on the mountain, I’ll know she’s exactly where she is meant to be.Rest in Power my dear dear friend
Asma (our social media) shares:
It’s so shocking and in this shock, I remember who Stephanie decided to be when she was shocked by unfair systems and when she was facing injustice..
Stephanie was elevated when challenged and she held the entire team when we were going through challenges of our own.I will never forget the things she said to me when my brother died.
I will never forget the garden through her guided meditations she led us to during our team meetings. Stephanie came from the spirit mountain and to which she returns with ancestors and family intact.
Deep loss for us but deep gain for Stephanie's mother and ancestors. Sending love!
BE further wrote:
On Christmas day, we did a zoom call together with all the Alinker users who were alone on the 25th and could share time with us in community. We played the drum and flute from her bed and shared stories with everyone.
Hanging on her big bed with Toshka her wolfdog and many pillows, we often joked that is good we do not have an HR department. We watch rez movies and hauled laughing at the hilarious Native humour, ‘hey Victor…’ (for insiders) … so many memories which I will treasure for life.
Her brother Scott wrote me and said: ‘you gave her an opportunity when she had nowhere to go’, and I hear that, but we would have missed such a dear wise and fearless friend, committed and brilliant colleague, if we had not hired her.
She was so called unemployable, and I am so deeply happy that we are a different company, that we see people for who they are, not judge the bodies we have, and together we make it work.
My soul is more whole because of her, my memories plentiful of all the calls we had, sometimes late at night, she was always there, with so much love and joy. I miss my sister, but I feel her, joyful and surrounded by all her ancestors.
Stephanie will always be part of this team, in prayers and ceremony she will always be with us.
There are not enough words to express, but one thing I know, we never missed the words I love you before we ended our calls.
With love, so much love, BE
The Alinker USA & Canada
The Alinker UK
The Alinker - DACH
