Month: September 2021

Volunteer Opportunity

Volunteer Drivers Needed

The Dane Sanctuary Coalition’s (DSC) ’s Volunteer Driver Program is looking for volunteers who are occasionally available to provide rides for immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Rides could be to appointments in Milwaukee or Waukegan with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or every now and then to Immigration Court in Chicago. The Program also has provided rides for necessary appointments, such as medical appointments and transfers from the USCIS Detention Center in Juneau, WI to the immigrant’s new home. Recent drives have included taking a mother from her child’s hospital bedside to her appointment in Milwaukee and driving an asylum seeker just released from detention to a job waiting for him a hundred miles away. On other occasions we have driven immigrants to their naturalization ceremonies.

Training is provided by the DSC, one-on-one either by phone or by Zoom. There is never a requirement to do a particular drive or to do a minimum number of drives. Requests received by the coordinators are sent out to our pool of drivers. Each driver is then free to volunteer for that drive or not.

The only requirements for this important volunteer work are that the driver have a valid driver’s license and up-to-date car insurance. Drivers are asked to provide photocopies of those items via email to the coordinators.

If you are interested or for more information, please send an email to Dan or Dorit at danesanctuary@gmail.com

Announcement Events Updates

Big Read Announcement

Big Read Event This Fall

We will be reading the book Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by Jacob Soboroff.

You can plan now to obtain your copy of the book:

A Room of One’s Own and Mystery to Me, two local bookstores, will each have 10 copies available to purchase.
The public library also has 18 copies, which you may reserve.
Congregations can also order books directly from the publisher, HarperCollins. Contact Matt Perrino for bulk orders at Matthew.Perrino@harpercollins.com, 212.207.7104. Let him know you are part of the Dane Sanctuary Coalition Big Read program. Orders of 5 or more will qualify for a 50% discount and orders of 30 or more will get free shipping.
If ordering on behalf of the congregation, please have your tax-exempt information available.

Individual congregations and organizations are encouraged to organize book groups to discuss the book. Some individuals or smaller groups may not be able to set up their own study groups, so we encourage them to join one of the scheduled groups.

Action Alerts Updates

Action Alerts

Postcards for Citizenship for All

DSC is asking our member congregations, many of whom are not having in-person services due to the pandemic, and our nonprofits to plan an outdoor, socially distanced and masked postcard-signing event in their parking lot or a member’s home driveway, to send special postcards we’ve received from Voces de la Frontera asking our representatives to retain the language setting up a pathway to citizenship for 5 million undocumented immigrants (see categories above) in the Reconciliation Bill in Congress. We will collect and deliver the signed postcards to the Madison offices of Congressman Mark Pocan and Senators Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson before they vote on the bills at the end of September.

So far Orchard Ridge UCC, Midvale Lutheran, First Baptist Church, Madison Christian Community, and James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Congregation are planning outdoor postcard signing events on Sept. 5, 12 and 19, the last date before we need to receive the signed postcards and hand-deliver them all together to the representatives’ offices in Madison.

To participate, contact Leila Pine from the DSC Steering Committee at sabinosanctuary@gmail.com and send her your name, which congregation or group you belong to, which date(s) you are planning your event on, and how many postcards you need for each representative (20 or more as needed). She will send you an announcement to submit for your congregation’s weekly e-mail, event instructions, and arrange for you to pick up your postcards in time for your event.

Phone-Dogging the House and Senate

As the deadlines for budget reconciliation get closer, it’s more important than ever for our communities to pressure our Congresspeople in the House of Representatives and the Senate to include a CLEAN pathway to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants with no provisions that increase funding to the border!

Join us every Wednesday and Friday from 2-3 PM EST/1-2 PM CST/11-12 PM PST to drive calls to select targets. A Zoom link will be provided after you sign up!

Schedule:

8/25: Senate Judiciary Committee
8/27: Homeland Security Committee
9/1: Senate Judiciary Committee
9/3: Homeland Security Committee
9/8: Senate Judiciary Committee
9/10: Homeland Security Committee
9/15 onwards: TBD

If this is your first time calling, don’t worry! We will provide you with training and a script to use.