💵 SURJ BOSTON 2022 BUDGET FUNDRAISER
To sustain our organizing in 2022, we are raising money to cover the cost of Zoom, our website, closed captioning, training resources, protest supplies, and more! Our goal of $8,000 will cover our core costs for the year ahead. Please donate if you are able.
We encourage you to match your budget gift with support for the Celebration of Grassroots Organizing, which supports 11 anti-racist community organizations.
💵 SUPPORT RACIAL JUSTICE ORGANIZING IN BOSTON
We've raised $620 in support of the annual Celebration of Grassroots Organizing so far! Our community is committed to raising $5,000 for the Celebration, which funds crucial local organizing including Muslim Justice League, Youth Justice & Power Union, and nine other community organizations. Donate to support the Celebration here!
⭐️ 💵 🍎 “The Practices We Need: Transformative Justice and Unity Circles Fundraiser”
Sunday, May 22, 10 AM-12 PM
Please join the SURJ Boston Transformative Justice Practitioner Program cohort for a virtual fundraising event for Unity Circles. A group of SURJ members learned about transformative justice from Unity Circles, a program that trains young people in Boston to be Transformative Justice Practitioners. At the event on May 22, we will engage in a Circle around conflict - our past experiences with conflict and our visions for working through conflict. We will ask attendees during the event to support by moving money to Unity Circles to raise funds for future youth cohort practitioners. The event will be free and open to all. Please share widely! At the end of the event, we will be making an ask for donations for Unity Circles. Register here.
🔥 ACTION HOURS
Every Wednesday 12-1 PM, as well as every 2nd and 4th Wednesday at 7 PM, SURJ Boston members will guide you through actions curated from our BIPOC-led partners' priorities for that week! We also offer training in how to host action hours for your own community from 1-1:30 PM on the last Wednesday of the month. Action hours are open to all! Bring friends! :) Register here!
Mutual Aid
🔥 💵 Help us redistribute resources to our neighbors!
Our partners continue to value our support through volunteering, and food and monetary donations. Please help where you can <3
We have porches set up as donation drop-off sites please email us to get the address for a drop-off site of your choice: Belmont, Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, Medford, Somerville, and West Roxbury.
Urgent needs:
- The Cape Verdean Association of Boston (CVAB): Food & essential supplies are still GREATLY needed, please give what you can: See the full updated list of needs here.
- Volunteers to teach English as a second language
- Volunteers to help with the food pantry on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. More information here.
💵 If you would like to donate funds to our partners as well/instead: (we’d appreciate an email at surjbmutualaid@gmail.com to let us know you donated!)
Confronting White Supremacists
🍎 WHY WE CAN’T ALLOW THE FAR-RIGHT TO HOLD PUBLIC SPACE
An article from “It’s Going Down” analyzes recent trends in fascist organizing and anti-fascist responses in Boston. Read more about our local far-right groups on the New England White Supremacists website.
Prison Abolition
🔥 ☎️ THE ORGANIZING CONTINUES! TOWN HALLS, PHONE BANK, CANVASS FOR PRISON MORATORIUM BILL
ALL OUT to advance the bill to stop the new women’s prison! The deadline has been extended to June 30. That means we have eight weeks to keep building people power to pass it! Join a town hall or phone bank to ask constituents to call their legislators. Sign up here.
💵 Tax Refund Re-distribution for Cambridge HEART!
If you got a tax refund and it is surplus for you, please consider redistributing to Cambridge HEART, the brand-new, Black-led, community-based alternative public safety program. Cambridge HEART is raising $550,000 to hire 10 community members as first responders. And the SURJB HEART support team has set a goal of raising $50,000 through our SURJ community. Use this form to pledge some (or all!) of your tax return.
💵 Corporate giving for Cambridge HEART
Does your company engage in corporate giving? Ask your Director of Corporate Giving and Director of Charitable Donations to give to Cambridge HEART and help us to pay for salaries of community responders! Unsure what to say or how to ask? Email soscia21@gmail.com and we will help you.
Indigenous Solidarity
🍎 National Week of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) (was April 29-May 5, 2022)
Go to the link above to learn more and find resources to advocate and take action with us.
Fact sheet: Sexual Violence Against Women and Children in Indian Country
💵 SUPPORT THE LINE 3 LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
The Line 3 Legal Defense Fund provides support to people facing arrest, jail time, and state repression because of their opposition to Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline project. Donate through their website here!
💵 Fundraiser for Cree elder Tommy Monias
Tommy Monias, a Pimicikamak (Cross Lake in Manitoba) Cree elder and activist against a megadam project, has pancreatic cancer. His family asks for prayers as well as donations to help during this difficult time. GoFundMe link here.
🍎 PODCAST: IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE - #FREELEONARDPELTIER
Check out this episode of “When We Fight, We Win! The Podcast” about Leonard Peltier’s wrongful conviction and the fight to free America’s longest-serving political prisoner. See the episode description for actions to #FreeLeonardPeltier.
Contact us with any questions!
Housing Justice
No fault evictions should never happen, especially during a pandemic. Mutual aid is standing with neighbors facing evictions — join us to stand in solidarity with neighbors across the city.
🍎 FAIRLAWN TENANT ASSOCIATION TAKES ACTION TO PROVIDENCE
Check out news coverage from Fairlawn tenants taking action to protest DSF corporate landlord Arthur Soloman, a Brown alumni and Trinity Rep Theater trustee
☎️ ✉️ PUSH A HOUSING JUSTICE LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
The critical housing budget amendments did not make it to the State Representative's budget but Stay tuned to take action for critical housing justice legislation in the Senate's Budget.
Immigration Justice
🎉 ✉️ 💵 Thank Your Senator: The Work & Family Mobility Act Passes!
On May 5th, 2022, the Massachusetts State Senate joined the House in overwhelmingly voting YES for the passage of S2851, the Work and Family Mobility Act which brings MA closer to ensuring that all residents can obtain a license regardless of immigration status! Email your senator to thank them for supporting the act, stay tuned to hear about next steps to get the bill over the finish line, and donate to the Driving families Forward campaign here.
Public Education
🍎 Fight State Takeover!
The MA Dept. of Ed is threatening to seize control of Boston Public Schools. Register for a virtual town hall Tuesday, May 10, 6:30-8 pm to learn more and fight back with Our Cities Our Schools..
Learn more and sign up to receive updates from the Our Cities Our Schools campaign to learn how you can fight against harmful top-down interventions.
⭐️ 🔥 AAPI Heritage Month Celebration
Sunday, May 15, 11 AM-2 PM, Boston Common
Co-sponsored by NECAA (New England Chinese American Association), ACF-TBF (Asian Community Fund of The Boston Foundation), and CARE to celebrate AAPI Heritage and show solidarity of all ethnic communities across the state in support of anti-racism and equity.
✉️ 🔥 Take Action Now to Keep Schools Safe from COVID!
Urge Mayor Wu & BPS to keep the mask requirement and improve ventilation.
- Send emails to city officials in a few clicks
- Join BPS Families for COVID Safety meetings on Fridays - FMI & Zoom link
💵 📋 Fundraisers and Petitions
Give what you can and share with your networks:
- Donate to Boston Youth Organizing Project (BYOP): Committed to building youth power by creating youth-led spaces, we’re raising funds to support membership and “Neighbor to Neighbor” mutual aid program. Please contribute through Paypal and fill out our donation tracking form.
- Support activist Wayland X. Coleman get safe food while in prison!
Sign your name in support:
- Dorchester Bay City should be for us! Join Dot Not 4 Sale in pushing back on a multi-billion-dollar private development on public land.
- Petition to terminate Harold Adams' 50 year old life sentence
🍎 Dig Deeper
⭐️ 🔥 Join Dorchester People for Peace for Outreach in White Communities
After 2 years off, Dorchester People for Peace (a Dorchester based anti-war, anti-racism activist group) is planning to restart the project Outreach in White Communities. This entails setting up a table in predominantly white spaces in Dorchester with the intention of striking up conversation with other white people about systemic racism. Our table is set up with a banner, a question to invite conversation, and articles and resources to share. We are aiming to conduct this tabling once a month in the summer and fall starting in mid-June. If you are interested in learning more and participating in this project, please contact Kristen Aldrich at kristen.aldrich@gmail.com.
SOLIDARITY FOR RACIAL JUSTICE: STUDY GROUP AND ACTION CIRCLE
Join community members from across Massachusetts at Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council's Racial Justice solidarity study group Tuesdays at 6pm followed by action circle at 7pm, both virtual. We will push for reparations for slavery and racial equity from the War on Drugs municipality by municipality across Massachusetts Learn and apply with community standing in solidarity for racial justice for cities across Massachusetts today. Change can't wait. Register today!
Boston KNAPSACK ANTI-RACISM GROUP
Engage with us as we discuss: Whiteness Hurts (study group), books, and more. See our upcoming Zoom discussions / meetings; RSVP if you can attend.
Knapsack Facebook discussions are an
alternative to the Knapsack Meetup group; it is not required to join this FB group to join/attend the Meetup group.
WHITE PEOPLE CHALLENGING RACISM
Moving From Talk to Action: Find workshops and sign up on the WPCR website.
sign up for updates on specific issue areas
Sign up to receive communications directly from SURJ Boston groups around political education opportunities and ways to take action.
SURJ Boston is a project of Community Change Inc (CCI), a Boston-based organization promoting racial justice and equity by challenging systemic racism and acting as a catalyst for anti-racist
learning and action.
In 1968, as a result of the Civil Rights Movement and in response to the Kerner Commission which named racism as "a white problem”, CCI was birthed. CCI promotes racial justice and equity by challenging systemic racism and acting as a catalyst for anti-racist learning and action. CCI accomplishes its mission through education, advocacy and working in solidarity with others to organize for change.
Feeling overwhelmed?
Commit to doing just one thing this week.
We can do this.
Read more about SURJ Boston and ways to get involved on our website.