Category: Outreach

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Help Us Fund Our Kid’s Movie Event

Donate to our Kid's Movie fund image

Our cur­rent ser­vice project is to host a free movie and piz­za for kids at the West Toledo Branch Library each month. We have had good turn out each time, aver­ag­ing about 20 kids and some care­givers. We would like to con­tin­ue this project into 2025. If you can help fund the project please do.

Here is mes­sage from our President Douglas Berger:

The first place I lived when I moved to Toledo 8 years ago was on Lewis Avenue in the Five Points neigh­bor­hood. The near­est library branch was West Toledo in Library Village. This is a clas­sic Tudor style build­ing and is busy much of the time.

Our co-founder Shawn grew up in the Library Village area and want­ed to do a ser­vice project that was focused on the kids in the area. This area is mod­er­ate to low income area and with that peo­ple have mon­ey at the begin­ning of the month and by the end of the month not so much. Shawn hatched the idea of show­ing a movie and offer­ing free piz­za and oth­er snacks for the kids at the end of the month.

We show movies from the Disney library and pro­vide Marco’s Pizza and oth­er snacks like baby car­rots and bananas. We don’t talk about Humanism or our group since that is what church­es tend to do when hav­ing free kid activ­i­ties — pros­e­ly­tize. We just want the kids to come to the base­ment audi­to­ri­um, sit back, and have fun for a cou­ple of hours.

Shawn and sev­er­al of us have fund­ed the project through September but now we need your help. It can cost up to $100 for each event and we would like to con­tin­ue the project for a year. We would need at least $300 to fin­ish 2024 and $1200 to cov­er the whole of 2025. We will be look­ing for addi­tion­al sources of fund­ing but we hope you can help now.

To Donate, use the link below:

https://humanistswle.org/donations/kidsmovie

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Another Old West End Fest In The Books

SHoWLE enjoyed anoth­er Old West End Festival on June 1st and 2nd this year. We had sev­er­al peo­ple join our email list and we talked to many more who stopped by. New this year was a dona­tion col­lec­tion box and we brought in $9.18.

The Prize Wheel was just as pop­u­lar with the kids and the young at heart but it did suf­fer some dam­age from overnight rain between Saturday and Sunday. We will have it restored and bet­ter than ever for the Maumee Summer Fair in August.

SHoWLE wants to thank the vol­un­teers that spent their week­end help­ing staff the booth — Ed, Michaelene, Anne, and Shawn. We also thank the donors that fund­ed the booth space and much of the swag we hand­ed out this week­end.

Here are some snaps tak­en dur­ing the event:

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Donating Cash to Food Banks

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.

Toledo Northwestern Ohio Food Bank
Seagate Food Bank

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Please Take Our Survey

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.

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Glass City Humanist Coming To Toledo Radio

Glass City Humanist cover art next to WAKT logo

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

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Remember SHoWLE on GivingTuesday

Showing logo for GivingTuesdayNWO
Douglas Berger — President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

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.

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More than half of LGBTQIA+ People are Nonreligious

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.

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Our Virtual Darwin Birthday Blood Drive

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

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This Giving Tuesday We Need Your Support

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:

Center for Christian Virtue, a heavy hit­ter in Ohio’s cul­ture wars, buys build­ing across from Statehouse

Foundation for Life buys park­ing lot across from Toledo abor­tion clin­ic

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Time to Adopt-A-Family

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