Tag: donation

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Remember SHoWLE on GivingTuesday

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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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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

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People Need Help All Year. SHoWLE Wants To Get There

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.

Douglas Berger — President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

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.

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Donate To Our Fall Fundraiser

For the month of August and September 2020, the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie will be hold­ing a Fall Fundraiser. Our goal is to raise $1000 that will be used to sup­port the oper­a­tion of the group and edu­cat­ing the pub­lic about the group and Humanism for the 2021 Fiscal Year.

If you donate at least $40, you will have a choice of one of these great gifts:

Continue read­ing “Donate To Our Fall Fundraiser”
Here for Good 2025: [Buy a T-shirt and Support SHoWLE](https://www.jupmodesupply.com/products/secular-humanists-of-western-lake-erie-here-for-good-2025)
Here for Good 2025: [Buy a T-shirt and Support SHoWLE](https://www.jupmodesupply.com/products/secular-humanists-of-western-lake-erie-here-for-good-2025)