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#FSPostcards4Families Event | June 27
As details regarding the more than 2,300 children who've been separated from their asylum-seeking parents at the U.S. and Mexico border continue to unfold—many in our community are struggling with feelings of outrage, helplessness, and despondence.
A group of academics brainstorming ways to raise awareness about the harrowing effects of this administration's "zero-tolerance" policy came up with a way to allow families like theirs to help: Writing postcards that call on those in power to act with humanity toward those seeking asylum. They’re using social media to help their #postcards4families campaign go viral.
Friends Seminary is joining their efforts. We invite all members of our community who are around in the city to join us for a postcard writing event to elected officials on Wednesday, June 27, from 4-6 PM in the School Lobby. Blank postcards, markers, and address labels will be available on site. All that is needed is your creativity and voice to turn the postcards into a call for a humane and quick response to reunite separated children with their families. Drop in to create a postcard and add it to our community collection. We’ll take care of the mailing.
The following groundbreaking programs that specifically address the needs of these refugee families will be the recipients of all raised funds: Immigrant Justice Corps, Terra Firma, and ICARE (a coalition of immigration advocates which includes the Legal Aid Society, The Door, Catholic Charities Community Services, the Safe Passage Project, Make the Road New York, Central American Legal Assistance, and Kids in Need of Defense), along with the Human Rights Watch, whose frontline investigations, documentation of abuses, and satellite imagery of detention centers contributed to the wave of public outrage and opposition to the separation of families.
For every community member who participates in Friends Seminary’s #postcard4families advocacy campaign, a donor has pledged to send $5 to support nonprofit organizations working in NYC to assist the more than 300 children who have been separated from their parents at the border and are now being held in New York with no clear path to reunification.
The following groundbreaking programs that specifically address the needs of these refugee families will be the recipients of all raised funds: Immigrant Justice Corps, Terra Firma, and ICARE (a coalition of immigration advocates which includes the Legal Aid Society, The Door, Catholic Charities Community Services, the Safe Passage Project, Make the Road New York, Central American Legal Assistance, and Kids in Need of Defense), along with the Human Rights Watch, whose frontline investigations, documentation of abuses, and satellite imagery of detention centers contributed to the wave of public outrage and opposition to the separation of families.
Staff from Friends Seminary’s Center for Peace, Equity, and Justice will be on hand Wednesday afternoon at school. For those of you whose summer plans find you already outside NYC, a postcard template and address labels can be accessed here. Before mailing, please take a photo of your postcard and post it to social media using these two hashtags: #Postcards4Families and #FSPostcards4Families.
Friends Seminary actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in all its programs and operations, including admissions, financial aid, hiring, and all facets of the educational experience. To form a community which strives to reflect the world’s diversity, we do not discriminate on the basis of race or color, religion, nationality, ethnicity, economic background, physical ability, sex, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation. Friends Seminary is an equal opportunity employer.
Friends Seminary — the oldest continuously operated, coeducational school in NYC — serves college-bound day students in Kindergarten-Grade 12.
