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One Year On: Finding Resilience, Community, and Laughter

OneAID and Grassroots Comedy Host Comedy Show to Reflect, Reconnect, and Laugh Together

Photo © Andrew Cohen, used with permission.

On a frigid winter evening in Washington, DC, the Festival Center in Adams Morgan was anything but cold. February 7th, more than 200 people gathered for the Comedy Show for Foreign Aid Resilience, hosted by OneAID in partnership with Grassroots Comedy. Timed to mark the one-year anniversary of the USAID stop-work order, the event brought together a community still grappling with a moment that reshaped careers, disrupted lives, and reverberated across the global foreign assistance ecosystem.

Instead of commemorating the anniversary with speeches or panels, the organizers made a deliberate choice to laugh instead of cry. Across two packed shows, including a sold-out early performance, the evening offered space to process loss, uncertainty, and frustration through humor, while reconnecting with one another in community.

The stop-work order set off a chain of events that extended far beyond Washington. For many foreign assistance professionals, it meant sudden job loss, financial instability, and the disorienting experience of watching deeply meaningful work stall or disappear. For communities around the world, it translated into disrupted programs and broken continuity in humanitarian, health, and development efforts. The Comedy Show for Foreign Aid Resilience acknowledged that weight without allowing it to define the night.

The audience was treated to a formidable lineup of local comedians whose diverse and intersectional perspectives complimented the international nature of the foreign assistance community itself. Performers included Mahmoud Jaber of DC Improv; Elizabeth Smith, a former USAID staffer and Grassroots Comedy Incubator alumna; Davine Ker of the Kennedy Center; Kim Villamera of Union Stage; and Benny Nwokeabia, who has appeared at DC Improv and LA’s Comedy Store. The evening was hosted by Chris Blackwood, founder of Grassroots Comedy and former USAIDer, whose blend of sharp humor and warmth set the tone for the night. In a nod to the spirit of the evening, attendees were also invited to try their hand at stand-up, and several brave souls stepped up to the mic.

One attendee, Sara, reflected that “the show was very cathartic. It feels like a lot of the world has moved on from what happened at USAID but for those of us that experienced its destruction, it will always be a part of us. This was a reminder that we still have community and a place to laugh (and cry) about what we went through.”

OneAID emerged in February 2025 amid this upheaval to support people navigating monumental change and now serves as a connector and information hub for U.S. foreign assistance professionals facing career disruption and uncertainty. More than a night of comedy, the event underscored the resilience of the community itself, reminding everyone that creativity, connection, and solidarity endure, and that shared laughter can help carry us forward.