A Heartfelt Ask This Holiday Season

November 15, 2017

Dear Safe Passages Family.

Let me start by thanking you for opening this newsletter. We could not do this transformative work without the support of our families, allies, strategic partners, and funders. Your investment helps to sustain our spirits and our mission. This season we call on you once again to renew your support for our concrete social justice work.

This year our national leadership’s systematic undermining of American democracy, the rise of white supremacy, the unjust anti-immigrant enforcement, federal neglect of Puerto Rico, and the war on poor people left us disheartened and angry. However, after each new distressing headline, we here at Safe Passages have doubled our resolve, channeled our energy towards imagining solutions, and implemented those solutions driven by our communities.

At Safe Passages, we believe that our work is a marathon, not a sprint. We invest in our communities for the long haul — with the intent to sustain meaningful outcomes for our families. Many initiatives come and go, but our commitment to the communities we serve is unwavering. Our families deserve real sustained solutions.

Over the last two decades, we have found that one of the most critical elements of our work is infrastructure because it allows us to be innovative in our work while remaining consistent in our community collaboration. Infrastructure matters because it allows us to be nimble and responsive to the communities we serve over the many years it takes to improve the trajectories of our children and families. The infrastructure allows us to deliver Thanksgiving meals to a family in need, enroll that same family in CalFresh, teach that same family about the brain development of their young children, and offer that same family a pathway to self-sufficiency.

We have used our creativity throughout the years to cobble together the resources to support our continuum of services, from birth to college and career. Despite the many funding challenges, we will not be swayed from our core strategy of investing in the families that we serve. Please continue to help make the work we do possible by donating to our 2017 #GivingTuesday campaign on Tuesday, November 28th.

We are hoping to raise $5,000 between Tuesday, November 28th and Tuesday, December 12th. We promise to leverage every dollar, and put your money to work serving the children and families in our communities to disrupt the cycle of poverty. Only collectively can we sustain the solutions our communities deserve.

Yours in Gratitude,
Josefina Alvarado-Mena, J.D.
Chief Executive Officer, Safe Passages