This is MLK Institute’s ONLY APPEAL in 2019, and it's URGENT!

 

December 11, 2019

 

Dear Friend of MLK Institute,
 

For 31 years the Westchester Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute for Nonviolence has been working for racial justice and combatting assaults on our Westchester communities and beyond. Threats to Dr. King’s vision of a Beloved Community pervade our world and our children’s. In response, we create safe spaces to build relationships across differences, deepen support for one another and explore possibilities for taking nonviolent action for change together.

 

We need your support in order to enhance our impact in 2020. Our goal is to raise $50,000. You will be helping 2020’s projects to be effective!

 

• As we do each year, we will launch 2020 with a spectacular celebration: our Music of Freedom Concert in collaboration with the Interfaith Connection. This interracial and interreligious gathering commemorates Dr. King on the Sunday that precedes Martin Luther King weekend, Sunday, January 12, at 4:00 at Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains.

 

• Our annual MLK Freedom Library Book Fair is a “don’t-miss” event for many families: authors of books for adults and young people, concerts, and activities for children. Join us Monday, January 20 at Barnes & Noble, City Center, White Plains. Any purchases that day (and online that week) benefit our library’s programs— hosting children from the WP Youth Bureau, Open Mic Nights, and lending any of 3,000 fiction and non-fiction books on African American history and culture.

 

• We are excited that Ending Violence, Building Hope Listening Circles will launch soon and will augment our dynamic work with teens in Westchester. We will bring facilitators to youth groups in their own settings, guiding them in discussions that will serve to educate, empower and lead to activism. Our signature larger event will resume later in 2020 when those small groups come together and learn, teach and plan together.

 

• Our Beloved Community Dinners will resume later in 2020. Please join us in breaking bread and strategizing together how we can be more effective organizers for equity, strengthening our resolve and our skills. We will meet at venues in the community as well as at Memorial United Methodist Church.

 

• We convene and collaborate closely with Westchester Coalition for Police Reform, working with community members and with law enforcement. WCPR has recently published a Voter Guide asking candidates about police issues; we hold monthly planning meetings; collaborate regularly with County Executive Latimer and Deputy County Executive Jenkins concerning criminal justice matters; and hold public forums, most recently with police chiefs and community advocates on the relationships between police and ICE, in an effort to reassure immigrant residents that police will protect them as much as possible.

 

These are exciting plans, but we cannot accomplish them alone. Will you join us? Will you help us meet our 2020 financial goals? Thank you for your confidence in us and continued support. Together, we can build the Beloved Community that inspired Dr. King and that inspires us.

 

For Justice and Peace,

 

 

Mary E. Faulkner, Acting Chair

 

 

P.S. There are many ways to give to the MLK Institute!                            

 

Donating is easy.  You can make your contribution online today at https://www.mlkwestchester.org/support-us or mail a check made out to MLK Institute, 250 Bryant Avenue, White Plains, NY 10605.

 

You can make a one-time donation or a monthly contribution of $10, $25, $50 or more to make a lasting impact over time.

 

• Your monthly $10 donation will help cover Beloved Community Dinner meals.

• Your monthly $25 donation will support the MLK Freedom Library’s programs.

• Your monthly $50 donation will help meet costs of our Listening Circles with teens.

 

Thank you!