Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie
Building community through compassion and reason for a better tomorrow.
At our November meeting, it was mentioned that food banks could use cash donations in addition to the usual food donations. Cash donations can actually help more clients of the food bank than direct food donations.
We also acknowledge that the need for food banks last all year and not just for the holidays. SHoWLE will be arranging some volunteer time at a local food bank early in 2024.
This is just a list of the two main food banks in Lucas county.
Each year we try to discover how our friends and members feel about SHoWLE. Please fill out the survey below. You can be anonymous but please be honest. It will be open until 10/1/2023. If you wish to tell us something not in the survey like you moved or something use our contact form for that or make sure you use your email address in the survey
If there is no embedded survey above click on this link…
*Note* All responses and information shared in the survey will be for internal use only and not shared outside the Board of Directors except for general aggregate results.
We are pleased to announce that starting soon, the Glass City Humanist podcast, an outreach of Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, will be making a 1 hour monthly program that will be heard on WAKT 106.1 FM in Toledo and on the Internet.
We Act Radio is a community radio station giving the residents of Toledo a way to know each other through music, talk, and other forms of programming. The content is generated by the community and by request of the community. It provides a voice for communities that may not have a voice in the media.
Glass City Humanist, produced and hosted by SHoWLE President Douglas Berger, will use the time on WAKT to introduce Humanism and the group to a bigger audience in Toledo and by extention listeners to the radio website. The exact content won’t differ too much from the content heard on the podcast but GCH will be able to do different things that might not be possible with just the podcast.
“We plan on doing things like asking for listener questions that will be read in the next episode,” the host Douglas Berger said. “We will also be able to interview people in a proper studio instead of just on Zoom or my house.”
There also might be chance at some future point to do a live show.
Details are still being finalized and we will let everyone know when the shows will start airing.
For more information about Glass City Humanist visit https://glasscityhumanist.show and for more information about We Act Radio WAKT 106.1 check out https://toledoradio.org
Hello, I’m Doug Berger, founder and President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. I want to remind you that Giving Tuesday is on November 29th and we would like to be your choice for your giving this year.
SHoWLE is the only active group in Northwest Ohio that is a democratic member run group providing a supportive – diverse – safe space for humanists and the non-religious. Our goal is Building Community Through Compassion & Reason For A Better Tomorrow.
We know people are limited in how many groups you can support, we know that under our current economic climate lots of people are either struggling or have had to cut back. I hope we make the cut for your tax deductible donations this GivingTuesday.
The simple fact is there is no organized effort, in Northwest Ohio, to help support the non-religious. We represent about 20% of the population in general. Humanists and the non-religious don’t have the millions of dollars or hundreds of volunteers that religious churches and groups have even as they beg for your dollars each year.
SHoWLE supports real religious freedom like strong separation of church and state. We don’t think that public laws and policies should be based on one particular religious view.
SHoWLE believes Humanism is a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
We affirm the dignity of every human being and asserts that humanity is responsible for its own destiny, having within itself all that is needed to improve the conditions of life.
I hope you will donate to us this year and when you can at other points of the year. If you are interested in our group check out one of our meetings or even join.
Help us create a community that supports reason, science, and equality. Help us build a community through compassion & reason for a better tomorrow.
This weekend SHoWLE will be having a booth at the Toledo Pride Festival at Promenade Park in Downtown Toledo from 12:30 PM to 7 PM. If we get the rain and storms forecast for Saturday afternoon we may leave the festival before 7 PM.
The Secular Survey from American Atheists just released a report this week with some insights into nonreligious LGBTQIA+ people. The report says over half of LGBTQIA+ people are nonreligious and most of them belong to secular groups like SHoWLE.
The top policy issues is protecting the secular public schools, getting rid of religious exemptions to discriminate, and furthering LGBTQIA+ civil rights and equality.
If you are celebrating Pride this weekend and are looking for a welcoming, inclusive community please check us out.
Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is celebrating Charles Darwin’s birthday with an urgent call for blood donations. There is a critical need in our area.
Darwin used science to change how we understand biology and evolution. With modern science and technology, you can impact lives today by donating blood.
For the next 90 days, go to the link below and pledge to give blood, then go to your nearest blood collection center and give the blood. Help make a positive impact to someone in need.
SHoWLE Act Of Humanity Challenge
Take a photo of yourself donating blood and share it! Just use the hashtag #SHoWLEActofHumanityChallenge
This past year has been a big year for Christian Nationalists in this country and here in the Toledo area.
Foundation for Life, the ironically named anti-abortion group that also includes support from the Archdiocese of Toledo, purchased the vacant lot next to the last abortion clinic in Northwest Ohio. Now members of their group can harass and mislead women without consequences.
The Center for Christian Virtue, also ironically named, a group that is anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-human just purchased a building across from the Ohio State House in Columbus for $1.25 million.
Groups like these, who completely oppose values we Humanists support, can drop tens of thousands of dollars to push their Taliban-like agenda.
Make no mistake, the world that groups like Foundation for Life want to see has already hurt many people. This isn’t just a difference of opinion. Christian Nationalists are an existential threat not only to Humanists but to anyone who believes in the Bill of Rights.
Meanwhile, we have to convince people like you to support our work and to help us build a community with reason and compassion for a better tomorrow.
It shouldn’t be this hard. We shouldn’t have to beg. The Christian Nationalists don’t have to beg. Humanists should have a community that is supporting and affirming of our values in Northwest Ohio.
We are asking you to please support SHoWLE: Make a cash donation today!
Help us build a Humanist community. One that values people and the world we live.
https://humanistswle.org/donate
Donations are tax deductible.
PS: You can help even more by becoming a member or renew your membership on our website
https://humanistswle.org/join-our-group
References:
Foundation for Life buys parking lot across from Toledo abortion clinic
For the third year, SHoWLE is participating in the Holiday Adopt-A-Family program through Lucas County Children’s Services. This year we have two small children, one 3 years old and one 18 months old and they have a caregiver that we would like to get a gift or two for as well. For those who want to help but don’t want to buy something you can donate cash to SHoWLE and we will use it to buy gifts and other needed items for the family. Just send us a check or money order or you can use our donate page on the website – just note that the donation is for the adopt-a-family. All donations and cash contributions should be given to us by December 10, 2021.
This is the kind of activity we would like to do year round as we get more members and some want to seriously commit to helping the community year round. While doing this during a religious holiday time is not ideal, this is manageable enough for our small group to complete. During the pandemic last holiday season we were able to gift the family we had with quite an assortment of needed items.
We hope you can help out. Any questions, please email Bev at bevzilla@yahoo.com
We recently hosted Charles Hill, the facilitator for the Columbus chapter of Recovering from Religion group via Zoom for our monthly meeting. Charles and friend of the group Joe Pittenger want to form a Toledo chapter of Recovering from Religion.
If you are interested please fill out the interest form below of send an email directly to Charles (charles.e.hill17@gmail.com).
(Any information collected with this form will remain confidential and used only to contact interested persons who wish to participate in a Recovering from Religion group in the Toledo area. If you would like to join the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie click HERE.)
*Update* The form has been removed, If you still have an interest then visit our contact page and fill it out.
One of the things that SHoWLE does, that I would like to see do, is assist the community where we live. One project we completed for the second year was adopting a family through Lucas County Children Services for Christmas. Of course the question that get asks is why only at Christmas when families need help all year round? Why copy what other faith groups do? Those are valid questions and I’ll explain our philosophy about community projects.
I am totally with those who complain about copying religious groups and pulling out the volunteering/donation machine only during the holiday season. I think only limiting such action to the holidays plays into the religious narrative that help is only needed during one time of the year so we feel better about not helping at other times.
The other consideration for year end donating is taxes. People who are able to deduct donations may want to wait until the end of the year to get their full return on the tax forms the next year.
Some non-profits also use the holiday season to raise awareness and donations about their cause during a time of the year when people are thinking about donating time, money, or things to those who are struggling.
The only obstacle to SHoWLE helping a family all year is we would need to have a group of members committed to helping all year. It would not be something to be thrown together at the last minute IF we have time. There will be times such an endeavor will be a grind and someone might not be “feeling it” that particular time or date. I know from past experience with the group I was part of in Columbus that even if you have five or six people saying they will help eventually it is left to one of two people to do all the work.
I won’t commit SHoWLE to a year long effort without knowing we have a solid commitment from volunteers to pull it off. I don’t want to see us commit to something and either fail to do it or do it half way. That would make us look bad in the community and might hurt future chances to work with other groups on other projects.
I just don’t think SHoWLE is big enough to sustain a year long effort to help a family at this time but we do have the capacity to participate in the limited holiday program through Lucas County although I did reduce the size of the family we helped from 3 people to two, this year, just so as not to stretch us too far.
SHoWLE will also try to help others if an emergency comes up. Last Christmas we were able to help a family that had been suddenly dropped by a company that had “adopted” them as part of their year end “giving back” to the community that many companies do on the holidays. We were able to pull together some extra resources so that family didn’t miss out because a company heartlessly changed it’s mind.
I am always open to new ideas. If someone is enthusiastic about some project and they pretty much do the leg work to get it setup and coordinate it then I am willing to try it and promote it to the rest of the group.