Justice
Justice blog migrating to tumblr
Dear readers,
The Trinity Grace Justice blog is following our other TGC blogs over to tumblr to facilitate sharing information.
Please join us at tgcjustice.tumblr.com.
Thanksgiving Day: Volunteering
There is no better way to give thanks on Thanksgiving Day than to head down to your local soup kitchen to volunteer. If you live in New York City, here are some resources for you. The Bowery Mission is probably the most popular, but there are several other organizations that are well known in the city and that do good work.
The Bowery Mission in New York City: Thanksgiving Volunteer Information. [NOW FULL] You’ll need to fill out an online form to register before you can volunteer.
City Meals On Wheels: Citymeals-on-Wheels’ Senior Centers need your help on Thanksgiving Day. Help PREPARE, SERVE and DELIVER MEALS.
New York Cares: New York Cares has hundreds of different ways that you can make a difference in our city this holiday season. Help prep and serve a Thanksgiving dinner for the clients of the Yorkville Common Pantry on the Upper East Side. Check out there blog here. (I’ve participated in several New York Cares events and they are top notch.)
EDIT: More organizations to volunteer at on Thanksgiving Day– Feel free to send me other organizations that I can add to this list.
VolunteerNYC: Opportunities to volunteer (LINK FIXED!) – The Isaiah J. Jones Memorial Foundation will be hosting their third annual Thanksgiving dinner for our homeless. VolunteerNYC lists opportunities with various charities and nonprofits in the NYC area.
Robin Hood- Volunteer opportunities. The following organizations best match your interests. Click on the name of an organization to find out more about the available volunteer opportunities as well as who to contact to get involved.
"Very Young Girls" Documentary Screening, November 1
Read more about this filmHuman trafficking is not a foreign problem; it is happening in New York City. “Very Young Girls” is a powerful and moving exposé of the commercial sexual exploitation of barely adolescent girls in New York City. If you have a sister, daughter or friend who is a girl, this affects you. Being aware is the first step in winning this battle.
Q & A WILL FOLLOW THE FILM
Date: Monday November 1st
Time: Doors open at 7:30pm
Venue: PS 87, William T. Sherman School auditorium,
160 W. 78th St, New York, NY 10024
Hosted by www.allsoulschristianchurch.com
Suggested donation: $10. All proceeds will go to GEMS (Girls Educational and Mentoring Services) in their work with young women aged 12-21 in New York City.
For more information about the film & organization visit www.gems-girls.org.
Please help us spread the word & forward this to a friend.
Food, Faith and Health Disparities Summit, Oct 29-30
Did you know that Food and Health Disparities are an epidemic in New York City today? Did you know that race and economic status are a determining factor in diabetes rates as well as in access to fresh and affordable food?
On October 29th & 30th, NY Faith & Justice, Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, Social Services and Mission & Social Justice Ministry of The Riverside Church of NY and over 25 other organizations will be gathering together to come up with ways to fight this injustice by holding the Food, Faith, and Health Disparities Summit.
Based on curriculum developed by Everyday Democracy, the summit aims to democratize the change process. It will consist of a series of small group conversations made up of a diverse cross-section of New York City residents, faith leaders, community activists, advocates, business and governmental leaders. Following these conversations an action forum will be held and a series of “next steps” will be agreed upon to discover how healthy food and policy changes both at the community level and the level of individual churches/faith-based organizations can be made.
We hope that you will join us in this vitally important chance to make NYC a more healthy and just city. Please help us spread the word as well. This can be done in several ways. First, please invite 3 to 5 of your colleagues to attend the summit with you. The more people that take part, the more lasting change we can enact.
Please sign up for the summit by clicking HERE. There is no cost for this event, and food is provided.
We are also looking for several more volunteers to help with registration, food organization, and other logistical help. If you are interested in volunteering, contact Sue.
Thank you for your help and we look forward to seeing you at the summit!
Stop Child Trafficking Now
On Saturday, October 9, 2010, thousands of individuals will participate in SCTNow Walk in New York City to raise funds and bring awareness to the issue of child trafficking.
You are invited to play a vital role in saving the life of a child by joining our Trinity Grace Church walk team and helping us in our effort to raise funds to support SCTNow’s bold new approach that addresses the demand side of child sex trafficking.
If you would like to join the team or donate to a team member you can click here.
Donations may also be made via check, payable to SCTNow, and mailed to SCTNow, 414 West 51st Street, Lower Level, New York, NY 10019. Please be sure to include the team member’s name in the memo line.
Thank you for your support!
Bowery Mission's Summer's End Garden Party - Canceled
The Bowery Mission’s Summer’s End Garden Party was canceled.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner on "Peace"
My wife and I were privileged to live for one year in Costa Rica during the first term of office of Oscar Arias Sanchez who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. His statement on the work of peace is challenging and encouraging. – Gary Wiley
Peace is not a matter of prizes or trophies. It is not the product of a victory or command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions by many people in many countries. It is an attitude, a way of life, a way of solving problems and resolving conflicts. It cannot be forced on the smallest nation or enforced by the largest. It cannot ignore our differences or overlook our common interests. It requires us to work and live together.
- Oscar Arias Sánchez,
from his Nobel Lecture
Take the Food Stamp Challenge
What do you do when you have a mid-afternoon slump? I go downstairs to Starbucks and get a grande bold and something to sweet to eat. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger reminds us that for many New Yorkers, the 3 p.m. slump, is the 5 p.m. slump, is the 7 p.m. slump, is the 10 p.m. slump… This is the reality for more than 20% of New York City residents who are currently enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps.
Take the challenge! Get a brief taste of what it’s like to live on food stamps by trying it for a week. It will be tough, but nowhere near as difficult as it is for the 1.4 million New Yorkers who struggle to balance rent, medical care, and food every day, every week.
Commit to living on a food stamp budget for the week of September 20-24th. For more information, visit here.
Mobilizing Hope - date correction
NY Faith & Justice, The Micah Institute, & Union Theological Seminary invite you to:
Mobilizing Hope:
Adam Russel Taylor on Continuing the Work of Martin Luther King, Jr. Today
Friday, Sept. 17th
4:00pm
Union Theological Seminary
3041 Broadway @ 121st St.
NY, NY 10027
Martin Luther King Jr. read the words of the apostle Paul to the church in Rome–”Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”–as a call not to retreat from the world but to lead the world into the kingdom of God, where peace and justice reign. In King’s day the presenting problem was entrenched racism; the movement of God was a revolution in civil rights and human dignity. Now Adam Taylor draws insights from that movement to the present, where the burden of the world is different but the need is the same. See what today’s transformed nonconformists are doing at home and abroad to keep in step with the God of justice and love, and find ways you can join the new nonconformists in an activism of hope.
Adam Taylor is currently serving as a White House Fellow in the White House Office of Cabinet Affairs and Public Engagement. He was formerly the Senior Political Director at Sojourners where he was responsible for leading the organization’s advocacy, coalition building, and constituency outreach. He has also served as the executive director of Global Justice, an organization that educates and mobilizes students around global human rights and economic justice. Before co-founding Global Justice, he worked as an Associate at the Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights and as an Urban Fellow in the Department of Housing Preservation and Development in New York City. Taylor is an ordained Associate Minister at the First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and is married to Sharee Mckenzie Taylor.
Bowery Mission's Summer's End Garden Party
Come to the Bowery Mission’s Summer’s End Garden Party www.boweryyoungphilanthropists.org on Wednesday, September 15, from 6:30 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. at the West Yard of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery on 131 East 10th Street and 2nd Avenue, and bring your NYC community. The $35 ticket goes to support their services to the homeless of NYC, and it comes complete with wine and food tastings and classy live music.
