Hello
friends. First, we thank all who have supported Peaceworks with your time and
talents as well as your generous financial support. As we write this, we are
keenly aware of the need to raise at least an addition $17K before year’s end to
meet our financial obligations. We invite you to read through the letter below,
and then to give as generously as you can.
If
you’d like to see some of what we’ve been up to this year, here’s a LINK to a
photo-spread that’s gone out in our year-end mailer. If you’d like to
contribute securely on-line you can click HERE. Or, if you’d rather mail in
your contribution, you can download a coupon by clicking HERE and then printing
it out and mailing it to us.
It’s
the generous support of our community that allows Peaceworks to continue to
challenge misdirection and hold strong a positive vision of the sort of world
we are working to create. Please join us in this effort.
 | ||
| Part of the huge crowd at the Solidarity Rally held Jan. 20, 2018. Peaceworks joined with our progressive allies to organize this, among many, events this year. Thanks to all who participated. Photo by Jon Asher. |
MID-MISSOURI PEACEWORKS
Citizen
Action for Peace & the Environment
804-C
E. Broadway, Columbia, MO 65201 573/875-0539
www.midmopeaceworks.org mail@midmopeaceworks.org
Our
Work, Bringing People Together to Create a Brighter Future, Depends Upon Your
Support.
November
24, 2018
Dear
friend of Peaceworks,
The
end of 2018 rapidly approaches and we’re writing to you, as a supporter of our
work, to ask you to help us end the year well. For us this means raising at
least $25K during the last quarter of the year, and we really need your support
to achieve this goal.
About Us: As you probably
know, Peaceworks is pretty unique. As our name implies, we’re a peace group,
but we’re a lot more. For nearly 30 years we’ve been active proponents of
sustainable living and, in this vein, we’ve taken a leading role in
coordinating Columbia’s Earth Day celebration. For nearly as long, we’ve been
pressing for effective action in the public policy realm to address climate
change. We’re an educational organization, an advocacy group, and for the past
28 years we’ve operated the non-profit Peace Nook as a community resource
center.
Our
plate was already fuller than most when the election of 2016 offered up a
heaping serving of “address-this-now” to add to our to-do lists. We once again jumped
right on it, as we’ve done many times before. By the end of November 2016, we’d
brought the progressive community together to form what has become the
Mid-Missouri Solidarity Network, a loose alliance of progressive groups that’s
put together Solidarity Rallies and Marches in January of both 2017 and 2018,
as well as Citizens’ University in August 2018. And we are right now working
with our allies to put together a march and rally that will be held on January
19 of 2019.
Our Vision: Peaceworks
holds to a vision of a future that’s truly livable; a future in which people
recognize the necessity and desirability of living in peace with one another; a
future in which diversity is celebrated and fear of the “other,” based upon
difference, is a thing of the past; a future in which cooperation is embraced
and domination and control are rejected.
We
recognize that this future is not right around the corner—far from it,
actually—but we also know that unless we hold to, and articulate, the vision,
we are unlikely to ever achieve it. Thus, while our work has us addressing
matters much more immediate—working for a robust Climate Action and Adaptation
Plan for CoMo, for example—we regularly articulate the broader vision and
encourage others to recognize our potential. This is particularly relevant in
the war and peace realm, as a whole generation has come of age knowing nothing
but permanent war.
What We’ve Been
Up To:
Often, when we write an appeal like this we lay out what we’ve done throughout
the year, the events we’ve organized, from Earth Day and the Sustainable Living
Fair, to films we’ve shown, speakers we’ve sponsored, talks we, ourselves, have
given, demonstrations we’ve organized, op-eds we’ve penned, our presence in
cyberspace, on the campuses and at events in the community throughout the year.
We mention our visits to Congressional offices and our weekly Rush Hour Demos,
as well as the times we’ve brought the community together for potlucks and
celebrations.
As
a supporter, you already know a lot about what we do, so we will keep this
short. We do want you to know that we’ve been proactive whenever we can, and
reactive whenever we’ve needed to be. In the age of Trump, there’s been more of
the latter than we’d like, but we must play the hand we’ve been dealt. We also
have consistently pursued coalition. Making common cause and coming together
with others really does make us stronger and more effective.
We Really Need
Your Support: Our ask is
simple: your generous support. We really need more friends to step up to the
plate and join our Peaceworks Peace Core, giving at the $100 or above level, or
donating on a monthly basis at $10 a month or more. Giving as generously as you
can is all we can ask, and we appreciate what each of you does to support our
work at whatever level works for you.
While
money, alone, won’t turn things around, it is a necessary ingredient. These
are, as we noted above, extraordinary times. And such times require
extraordinary responses. We hope we can count on your generous support.
We also invite your active participation. And, we assure you, there are many ways to contribute your time and talents to our efforts. But, right now, what we’re asking for is your financial support to help us reach a $25K goal that will give us the wherewithal to move things forward in 2019. We hope you will recognize that bringing people together, sustaining the resistance and promoting a positive vision of a future that works for all is really needed now. Please support this work as you can.
We also invite your active participation. And, we assure you, there are many ways to contribute your time and talents to our efforts. But, right now, what we’re asking for is your financial support to help us reach a $25K goal that will give us the wherewithal to move things forward in 2019. We hope you will recognize that bringing people together, sustaining the resistance and promoting a positive vision of a future that works for all is really needed now. Please support this work as you can.
Your
contribution is tax-deductible. You can mail it in or you can give securely by
clicking HERE. We know that at this
time of year you are likely receiving many requests for support. There are few
groups, however, that do as much with as little as our grassroots,
volunteer-driven non-profit. We’ve been at this for nearly 37 years and our
intention is to hold firm to our vision of a brighter, more peaceful, just and
sustainable future. We really hope you will support this work as generously as
you can.
With
much appreciation and best wishes this holiday season,
Mark
Haim
Director
Kim Dill
Peace Nook Coordinator
Laura Wacker
Sustainability Education Coordinator
