By: Catherine Daleo
Reading time: 2-3 minutes

Local Las Vegas culture and community-focused organization, Fifth Sun Project, has continued to help provide support to organizations and causes throughout the valley during the pandemic. 

Eztli Amaya, one of the co-founders of Fifth Sun Project, along with sisters Estefania & Giovana Rangel, all work together on coordinating projects and facilitating collaborations with individuals and organizations here in Las Vegas. Their mission is to provide support and solidarity to the community. 

Amaya shared that the organization, founded in April of 2016, works to amplify social, cultural and environmental issues in order to raise awareness for issues in the Vegas community. She went on to say that they support hands-on actions by raising funds for various causes.

Regarding the background and symbolism of the organization’s name, co-founder Estefania Rangel shared that, “We decided to name our organization Fifth Sun Project because all Fifth Sun members have Mexika roots. Through the Fifth Sun, we are able to understand our culture and ancestral knowledge regarding creation and four previous stages the earth has gone through, each destroyed by an element. We are now in the fifth stage – The Fifth Sun.”

Due to the pandemic, Fifth Sun Project has had to alter how they conduct their work in the community. “It has affected our ability to hold events, network and volunteer in person,” Eztli Amaya said.

Amaya went on to state that the organization initially responded by sharing local COVID-19 resources and helping people with COVID-related issues. Elaborating, she shared that they collaborated with “Food Not Bomb, Las Vegas Climate Save and Las Vegas Animal Save by making food for homeless and community members in need.”

Just recently, Fifth Sun Project conducted a community-wide awareness campaign in helping out The Vegas Freedom Fund – a group that works to help people post bail. The Freedom Fund has recently been focusing largely on posting bail for people being arrested at the recent anti-racism protests. 

Thanks to the support of local artists, creatives, and small businesses from the Las Vegas community who donated art and merchandise to be raffled off, Fifth Sun Project raised funds to benefit the Vegas Freedom Fund. 

People who wanted to enter the raffle were encouraged to make a $5, $10, or $20 donation directly to the Fund and email a copy of their receipt to Fifth Sun Project in order to be entered into the raffle for varying categories of items.

Fifth Sun Project reported that 42 different artists and businesses participated in donating to the raffle, helping to raise $815 for the Vegas Freedom Fund through a total of 31 donations. 

Amaya went on to share how they want to keep the momentum going with the Project by being more active. “One of our missions is to create more unity and eliminate division within our community,” she said. “Vegas locals have a lot of projects going on and it would be very benefitting for us all to support each other.”

While they don’t have any upcoming events planned at the moment, Amaya said that Fifth Sun Project usually jumps into action when there’s an issue in the community that isn’t getting the attention or support it needs. 

She also gave a shout out to some organizations and individuals who Fifth Sun Project has partnered with, including those mentioned before: Las Vegas Climate Save and  Las Vegas Animal Save, Food Not Bombs; as well as local activists Fawn Douglas and Christian Gerlach.

Amaya concluded by sharing how people in the Las Vegas community can help Fifth Sun Project continue their work, especially during the current crises, saying that having people follow their social media pages, sharing their posts, suggesting ideas to them and setting up collaborations has the greatest impact.

“Please reach out to us if there are any issues you’d like to bring attention to,” Amaya said. “We are always willing to support our Las Vegas community any way we can.”

The Fifth Sun Project also has a list of community resources that they have through their Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fifthsunproject

You can learn more about Fifth Sun Project by visiting the following links:

FSP Facebook

FSP Instagram