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This is an emergency communication with requests to help our families, a call to action, and information about our annual event.
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Friends,
We don’t normally send out emails like this, but these are distressing times. Our families are feeling scared and alone, as they are thrust into the role of teacher, chef and childcare provider, even while navigating jobs, lay-offs and reduced income.
Will you make an urgent gift of $50, $100, $250 or more today to pay for groceries and hygiene items for the SAC families struggling the most?
An SAC mentor just delivered groceries to one of our families and they are very worried about the burden of supplying food during the time school is closed. "Anna," our client’s mother, has mobility challenges and does not have transportation. Her son, “Dre,” lost his job due to the virus, so the family lost that extra income. Though the school is offering lunch pick-up from various schools, the family does not have the money to take the long bus ride each day to go pick up food for the children in the home.
How can Anna, Dre and their family get by in this pandemic alone? They can’t.
Your emergency gift today will be used right away to buy supplemental food for families like Anna’s and Dre’s.
But they are only one of many families needing help. SAC has more than 170 open cases in Wayne, Washtenaw and Jackson counties, and we are carefully assessing each one. There’s the family whose mother recently lost her job and was running out of food this week. There’s a mother whose Medicaid is shut off, struggling to get asthma medication for her son and psychotropic meds for her daughter.
Our budget is tight and we weren’t planning on these added expenses. Your gift will provide instant relief, as we try to be creative and responsive to those in need.
We are asking that you send an emergency gift today so we can make sure Dre and students like him can get the food and connection they need to get through this hard time.
With gratitude,
P.S. Many thanks to those of you who have given already. Your gifts have bought groceries and thermometers (we found a way to buy in bulk!) — and even more, that intangible gift of connection. We are not alone. We are better together.
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Telling Tales, our annual storytelling fundraiser, will not happen on Friday, April 17. At this time, we are planning to hold the event on Friday, May 22. With conditions changing so quickly, we are working on virtual contingency plans that would, if necessary, allow ticket holders to enjoy the event from the safety of their home. Please be patient with our small team as we navigate these uncertain waters.
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CALL TO ACTION: Just COVID-19 Response
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Student Advocacy Center is joining with community-based organizations across Michigan calling on the state to take important emergency measures to protect ALL citizens from COVID-19.
This coalition is committed to seeing our communities through the global pandemic of COVID-19. Together, we are reorienting our collective resources for the care and survival of our most vulnerable residents.
When our priorities are upside down, putting the interests of the most privileged ahead of the rest of us, we end up as we are now, in a situation where millions of workers can’t self-quarantine because they can’t miss a paycheck. Thousands of kids can’t learn because they don’t have access to education.
Our fates are tied. This virus reveals our interconnectedness in a personal way. The health and well-being of one is intimately bound to the health and well-being of all. Only by working together will we defeat this outbreak.
Please check out the platform here:
The demands for addressing school-age children include:
*** Provide all K-16 students free internet and technology to
participate in online instruction.
*** Provide child care vouchers for families, without income or
citizenship requirements.
*** Suspend K12 state testing requirements that affect school or
teacher evaluation (MStep, PSAT, etc.).
*** Continue offering meals and in-school health clinics to students.
To sign on and be a part of this advocacy (as an individual and/or organization, click here.
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We will be updating this Amazon Wishlist with items our families need, so if you prefer to buy items directly, keep an eye on this. Be sure to designate Student Advocacy Center as your beneficiary through Amazon Smile, so we can get a percent of every sale!
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