SURJ Boston

Mutual Aid and Supplies Collection

⭐️ 💵 Pledge Your Stimulus Check

With another round of stimulus checks on the horizon, SURJB’s mutual aid team will work to redistribute checks from our network to our neighbors and community members. We are building our plans in consultation with partners and will keep pledgers updated.

Sign up to pledge your stimulus check!

⭐️ ✊ ALERT: FOOD AND CRITICAL SUPPLIES NEEDED

Our mutual aid partners (Cape Verdean Association of Boston, 12th Baptist Church of Roxbury, and VietAID) continue to remind us that critical supplies like food, masks, and sanitary products are in higher demand than ever.

This past week you donated ~$2,000 to our mutual aid partners. Thank you SO much. It makes a huge difference.

We’re asking folks to focus on the following items for 12th Baptist and CVAB:

• Nonperishable foods, particularly ethnically appropriate food (Vietnamese, Chinese, Caribbean, Cape Verdean)
• In particular, rice, beans (red kidney, lima, and black beans), as well as corn and tuna * HIGHEST NEED
• Toilet paper, disinfectants, diapers, and masks (reusable and disposable) are also in demand

For VietAID they are accepting the following donations:

• Oatmeal (boxes of individual packets)
• Mac n’ cheese
• Tuna

SURJ Boston has drop off sites in Allston, Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge (new location till January), Jamacia Plain, Roslindale, Roxbury, Somerville, and West Roxbury.

💵 Can’t donate goods?

Make a monetary donations to our partners instead so that they can continue their life saving work. The links to donate are hyperlinked below. Please shoot us an email at surjbmutualaid@gmail.com if you donate!

• Cape Verdean Association of Boston
• 12th Baptist Church of Roxbury
• VietAID

Prison Abolition

💵 MUTUAL AID: HYGIENE SUPPLY DRIVE FOR INCARCERATED PEOPLE

The incarcerated community in Massachusetts is facing scary rates of COVID with little access to basic hygiene resources. Black & Pink and Deeper than Water are organizing a fundraiser to continue health and safety purchases for incarcerated people, to provide funds that cover the costs of communicating with loved ones in the holiday season, and to prevent the evictions of released members struggling with employment and income. Please send what you can!

☎️ 🍎 DORCHESTER AND ROXBURY: SUPPORT KIMYA’s HOUSE!

• New Beginnings Re-Entry Services, a re-entry service run by and for Black formerly incarcerated women is working hard to open Kimya’s House, their first re-entry home. It will provide a dignified living situation for women leaving incarceration, so they can heal and rebuild their lives. Read about Kimya’s House on New Beginning’s website.
• We need to prove that Boston supports the new residential program at Kimya's House! If you have a 02119 and 02121 zip code (individuals or organizations), please contact City Council President Kim Janey to say you support Kimya’s house! Opposition is being led by absentee landlords, developers, and bankers who don't live in the community.
• Call City Council President Kim Janey 617-635-3510 and fill out her contact form here.
  • If you are not a Roxbury resident, say you are with Families for Justice as Healing (100R Warren St, Roxbury)
  • Say you support New Beginning’s Kimya’s House/BOA #112104.1

⭐️ ☎️ 🍎 Week of Action: Building Up People Not Prisons

Along with other important items, Governor Baker has blocked language in the MA State Budget that would support decarceration during a pandemic - even though it is the gold standard for public health.  Please read more here, then contact your state legislators to ask them to keep this language intact!

• Decarceration is the best way to stop the spread of Covid. Make three simple calls to advocate for the health and safety of incarcerated people in MA!
• Sadly, No Cost Calls is not happening this legislative session. FJAH is developing messaging that balances the deep harm of this policy failure and encourages the legislature to act next session.
• See pictures on Instagram from Families for Justice as Healing’s successful Christmas Village! Thank you to everyone who shared a gift!

📋 Sign These Petitions to Protect Our People From Police and Prisons!

• Live in Middlesex County? Please sign this petition about No Cost Calls to send to Sheriff Koutoujian.
• Support the Families for Justice as Healing demands for the new Boston Police Department contract with the city by signing this petition!

Public Education

⭐️ 🍎 School reopening

Boston Education Justice Alliance member the Boston Teachers Union is holding a forum on Tuesday, December 29th from 6-7:30 PM to discuss safety and educational needs in the Boston Public Schools as schools re-open during this pandemic. Please click this link to register and forward this along to friends and families connected to the BPS system.

✊ FREE MEALS FOR BPS FAMILIES

If you know families in the Boston Public Schools that could benefit from free meals, please spread the word about the Boston Public Schools (BPS) School Meals and Super Sites available across the city. Additionally, anyone can pick up these meals and drop them off for a BPS family, they just need to know how many children are in the family!

💵 Unafraid Educators COVID-19 Relief Fund

Please consider donating to the Unafraid Educators COVID-19 Relief Fund for students and families in Boston Public Schools who need financial support during this time. Also, please share the form with those who might need it.

Housing Justice

⭐️ ☎️ Call the Statehouse to Pass Affordable Housing Home Rule Petition

Call the statehouse before the legislative session ends on January 5! Urge them to bring bill H.4115 to a vote before the legislative session ends. This bill would strengthen affordable housing in Boston and MA by allowing individual communities to set rules that meet their own needs on linkage fees (fees associated with new development that go into funds for affordable housing and job training). We need at least 60 more people to call to meet our goal of 100 calls! Use this automatic calling tool here.

📋 Petition: Change the IDP to 33% Truly Affordable Housing

Please sign and share widely! The Coalition for a Truly Affordable Boston is calling on the city to change the Inclusionary Development Policy (IDP) to more accurately reflect the need for affordable housing in Boston. Sign the petition here—help us reach our goal of 2000 signatures!

💵 Fundraiser to Support Our Community Members After a Fire

Thank you so much to all who have donated! Please continue to support our community members who lost their home to a house fire. Please share these powerful words from one of the residents and fellow organizers, Lori, and keep sharing and donating to the fundraiser if you can.

Pass Topa: Holiday Card Campaign

We have an opportunity to pass the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) as a part of the Economic Development Bill (H.4879). This act would give tenants of a building the right to be notified and make a first offer (or designate a third party, like a nonprofit, to do so) when the landlord plans on selling their building. This is a no-cost solution for the government that would keep more people from being displaced from their homes. The Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust (BNCLT) has launched a holiday card writing campaign to pass TOPA. Send one to your legislators this December here.

Take Action Together

☎️ 📋 ✊ Action Hours

Every Wednesday 12 to 1 PM

Want to host your own? Trainings the last Wed of the month 1-1:30 PM (just stay logged in)!

Register here for action hours and invite friends to action hours on Facebook. We will be holding these throughout December!

Overwhelmed by the number of actions you see each week? SURJB Active Members guide participants through calls, emails, petitions, fundraisers and more as we build the movement for racial justice! We provide more context on the calls to action and insight on how our actions help to advance the struggles we are working on.

Indigenous Solidarity

⭐️ 🍎 Little War on the Prairie

This American Life’s 60 min. podcast about when 38 Dakota Indians were hanged…158 years ago on 12/26/1862. “Growing up in Mankato, Minnesota, John Biewen says, nobody ever talked about the most important historical event ever to happen there: in 1862, it was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged after a war with white settlers. John went back to Minnesota to figure out what really happened 150 years ago, and why Minnesotans didn’t talk about it much after.” Nov. 2012

We appreciate and acknowledge that we live and are guests on Indigenous land. We want to be mindful and respectful of this, treating and celebrating the land (and our environment in general) like any place we would be as a guest. To get informed: native-land.ca and usdac.us/nativeland. Learn more from a panel discussion here.

Confronting White Supremacists

💵 Support a Black Lives Matter Activist!

On 10/18, while demonstrating against Super Happy Fun America, a white supremacist organization, a Black activist was violently arrested by Boston Police Department. He was defending his fellow protesters from police harassment, and has since lost his job due to the ensuing court case. Please help him stay afloat while he fights his case and for liberation.

✊ JOIN OUR ANNOUNCEMENT LIST

Join our Confronting White Supremacists Announcement List to hear from us about opportunities to learn more and take action against non-state white supremacists and fascists in New England.

️✊ SHARE: CONFRONTING WHITE SUPREMACY IN NEW ENGLAND WEBSITE
Local activists have released NewEnglandWhiteSupremacists.com to contribute to the goal of exposing, opposing, and defeating local white supremacist movements. This is a great resource to share from your personal or organization’s social media pages. Feel free to reshare this one from Solidarity Against Hate Boston!

Election Defense

With all eyes on the GA Senate runoff race, the SURJ Boston Election Defense Team is joining with national efforts to get out the vote in GA. See details of actions and fundraisers below!

☎️ 📋 ✊ Get Involved with Phone Banking, Letter Writing, Canvassing

Join phone banking and post card efforts to get voters to the polls for the GA Senate runoff through the following:

• Join the SURJ Georgia Senate Runoff Team
• Phone Bank with People's Action to Flip the Senate
• GA Canvassing with SURJ and Southern Crossroads
• Postcards with Swing Left

💵 Donate to SURJ-PAC and New Georgia Project Action Fund

Donate here today to help SURJ mobilize white voters across Georgia to turn out to vote for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, while building lasting infrastructure and laying the groundwork for racial and economic justice victories for years to come.

☎️ Local! Call Law Firms who are Contesting Votes

Law firms (one in Boston!) in key battleground states like Arizona and Pennsylvania are doing post-election litigation to challenge legitimate votes and counting processes. Over the past couple of days, their offices have been flooded with calls and emails from people like you, demanding that they discontinue their efforts to threaten a free and fair election. Click here to call local and national law firms today!

Immigration Justice

💵 Support Student Immigrant Movement

Donate and become a Dream Sustainer to support immigrant youth to protect their community!

💵 Massachusetts Jobs with Justice

Follow Jobs with Justice on Facebook to learn more about their ongoing work and campaigns. You can donate or become a monthly sustainer!

📋 Bring Hieu Home

Hieu Huynh, a 49 year old refugee from Vietnam, has been detained at Essex County Correctional Facility since May. Hieu has been separated from his family and ill, elderly father for a conviction from over thirty years ago that he’s already served time for. The on-going detention of Hieu and the 400 immigrants and refugees detained at Essex County poses a massive threat to their health and safety, as Covid-19 infection rates peak and continue to rise.

Sign and share the #BringHieuHome petition to demand that Hieu and the 400 immigrants and refugees at Essex County be freed so they can be #HomeForTheHolidays with their families and loved ones. Find a further toolkit here.

✊ 💵 Support the BIJAN Community During the Holidays

This holiday season, BIJAN invites you to join or support their outreach efforts to people they’ve accompanied while they or their loved ones have been detained by ICE and/or fighting their deportations. As we end the year, BIJAN want to mail gift cards and holiday greetings to all we reach who are interested and out of detention, and to send commissary funds and letters of support to those who remain incarcerated. Sign up here to help them make this happen!

💵 Support those affected by Hurricane Eta

Join BIJAN and Movimiento Cosecha in fundraising to provide emergency response & mutual aid to those impacted by Hurricane Eta.

⭐️ Abolish ICE and Free Them All

Read BIJAN’s response to the Attorney General's Office's report regarding attacks made on community members detained in Bristol County this spring. Find sample email scripts and a Call To Action here.

💵 SUPPORT THE BLACK IMMIGRANTS BAIL FUND

Policing, incarceration, and deportation are rooted in white supremacy and anti-blackness. Black immigrants make up about 7% of the total non-citizen population in the U.S., but they represent over 20% of immigrants facing deportation because of the criminal punishment system. Donate to the Black Immigrants Bail Fund (a fund co-run by the Haitian Bridge Alliance and African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs).

Support the Staff of the BPL

📋 Please sign and share this email petition to support the library staff at Boston Public Library branches who want to be able to provide the materials desired by their patrons. This is a matter of racial equity and justice, since the communities most impacted by the limits of the BPL plan are communities of color.