“I’d like to call back summertime and have her stay for just another month or so.” Joni Mitchell.
Perhaps you are feeling the same way I am as I write this the last day of August, however this newsletter comes with best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year for you, your family and friends. As we continue to emerge from the Covid lifestyles we have been living, we are very glad to report that the High Holiday Food Drive will resume as usual with several opportunities to help our neighbors. With the coming of Fall our thoughts turn to election season, and our new Postcarding Co-Chairs Susan Goodman and Wendy Case have an important opportunity for us. Our TSARP committee members have been hard at work to help our Afghan friends resettle and acclimate to life in the United States. Finally, join in the fun at Family Access for their first Community Literacy Day. All details are below!
Best wishes to all and Happy Fall!
Marion Pollock Tzedek Newsletter Editor
HIGH HOLIDAY FOOD DRIVE
The tradition continues! Temple Shalom will once again be collecting items for the Newton Food Pantry on Yom Kippor. Requested items include:
Help will be needed on October 8th to unload the truck at the Food Pantry located at City Hall. Please contact bruce@ladygrace.com if you are able to help and to receive more information.
TSARP (Temple Shalom Afghan Resettlement Project)
TSARP was created in August 2021 to allow Temple Shalom to sponsor an Afghan family evacuated to the US. There was a terrific response from Temple Shalom congregants, along with our friends at Sacred Heart/Our Ladies, Newton Highlands Congregational Church, and more recently the Dover Church and the Islamic Masumeen Center of New England. The response and what we were able to do as a result exceeded our hopes of a year ago! Volunteers prepared and furnished apartments and we were able to welcome four young Afghan Air Force veterans, as well as a family of four who joined us in the spring. We helped them acclimate and get jobs, get needed medical and dental care, and most recently even helped several of them get drivers’ licenses and a no-interest loan to purchase a car! Many of you met our four young men at Refugee Shabbat in March, and many of you volunteered to help with setup, shopping, medical appointments and other critical needs. The TSARP funds raised have been used primarily to pay the largest expenses such as rent, with our friends contributing more and more as they were able, and also to subsidize driving school, and other large expenses. We thank everyone who has been involved for their volunteer efforts and financial support.
The TSARP story so far has been a happy one of 8 people who left a desperate situation in Afghanistan and are now productive members of our New England community, The next stage in their journey is to seek asylum, which is the first step towards green card and citizenship status (and the only way they can become citizens.) Unfortunately, the refugee agencies are not able to provide the legal support needed for an asylum application, so we are now facing a large new expense – legal expenses for asylum filings for our friends. We are inviting you to contribute to TSARP to help with these expenses. You can contribute by going to Donate - Temple Shalom and choosing Afghan Resettlement Project. Thank you in advance for your help!
With the important mid-term elections quickly approaching, JALSA (Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action) is offering two postcarding campaigns to get out the vote in Georgia and North Carolina. Temple Shalom in partnership with JALSA is stepping up our efforts. We are requesting 300 postcards for each campaign. Postcards need to be in the mail by late October.
If you would like to participate in this important effort, please contact Susan Goodman, susan.d.goodman@gmail.com or Wendy Case, wbcase@aol.com for more details.
Below are descriptions of the campaigns:
The Georgia Strategic Alliance for New Directions and Unified Policies (Georgia STAND-UP) provides research, strategy, technical support, and resource development for grassroots community organizing and non-partisan voter education. Founded in 2005 as a labor/community partnership, STAND-UP has emerged as a champion of community empowerment and progressive advocacy across the South.
The New North Carolina Project’s mission is to make politics represent the needs of North Carolinians by investing in communities of color, expanding the engaged electorate and creating #VotersForever.
NEWTON COMMUNITY FREEDGE
We are happy to announce that we have teamed up with Temple Emanuel to share Tuesday Freedge responsabilites. We continue to support the Freedge every other Tuesday, our next day is September 13th. We welcome you to join the team of incredible volunteers. For more information, please check out our website or contact Temple Shalom Freedge Co-Captain, Nate Powell.
FAMILY ACCESS LITERACY DAY September 17th, 492 Waltham Street, West Newton
Event will include:
Ribbon cutting of our Little Free Libraries dedicated to our longtime supporters Audrey Cooper and Louise Hauser.
Reading with Children's Author Thomas G Sullivan
Community Book Swap
Live Music
Family Arts & Crafts
Admission is Free!
Interested in supporting Family Access’s on-going literacy efforts?
Donate gently loved books to Family ACCESS ~ 8:00 am - 6:00 pm ~Mon - Fri (children's & parenting books only please)
