Tag: social justice

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Only 50 Kits, But Still An Endless Impact

On May 2nd about a dozen mem­bers and friends of SHoWLE gath­ered at the Sanger Branch Library to put togeth­er some shelf sta­ble meal kits as part of The American Empathy Project. SHoWLE was award­ed a grant from the American Humanist Association to buy the food and sup­plies need­ed to build the kits.

Here are some scenes from the event 100 Kits, One Community, Endless Impact: an American Empathy Project. SHoWLE thanks all who par­tic­i­pat­ed and helped us build 50 meal kits on May 2nd. Next time we will do bet­ter with the logis­tics. *Note* We will be donat­ing 100 kits, the oth­er 50 will be built lat­er this month.

100 Kits, One Community, Endless Impact: an American Empathy Project

Event featured image for our meal kit building project

May 2 @ 10:00 am — 12:00 pm

Event featured image for our meal kit building project

We’re excit­ed to announce that we’ll be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the American Empathy Project on May 2nd! Led by the American Humanist Association, the American Empathy Project has fund­ed 101 ser­vice projects nation­wide that will empow­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to com­bat our country’s cri­sis of cru­el­ty. One day of action — one uni­fied push to fight for empa­thy!

Our project: 100 Kits, One Community, Endless Impact

Sanger Branch Library Community Room A
3030 Central Ave, Toledo, OH 43606
Saturday May 2, 2026 from 10 am to 12 noon

We will be cre­at­ing at least 50 shelf-stable meal kits to donate to a food pantry in the Greater Toledo Area.

This event is open to the pub­lic so if you would like to vol­un­teer reach out to us or use the RSVP on our event page

Free

Douglas Berger

567–302-0209

Sanger Library Branch

3030 Central Ave
Toledo, OH 43606 United States + Google Map

Banning Child Marriage in Ohio

Banning Child marriage in Ohio with SB 341

March 14 @ 10:00 am — 12:00 pm

Banning Child marriage in Ohio with SB 341

We will watch a cou­ple of video clips about the top­ic and dis­cuss the pro­posed law in Ohio to ban child mar­riage.

Since March 14th is also “PI” Day feel free to bring in a pie to share.

This meet­ing is FREE and open to the pub­lic

We will be in the Auditorium in the Basement

Free

Sanger Library Branch

3030 Central Ave
Toledo, OH 43606 United States + Google Map
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Our 2025 Sponsor-A-Family Includes Two Children

This is a bit late notice but we final­ly know who the fam­i­ly is we will be spon­sor­ing this hol­i­day sea­son. We have a care­giv­er and two chil­dren — a girl and a boy. See details below.

Due to some gen­er­ous donors last year we have plen­ty of cash to pur­chase items on the list but we still need peo­ple to donate actu­al items on the list if you can. The dead­line is December 13 and please reach out to Bev (bevzilla@yahoo.com) to let us know what you pur­chased so we can lim­it dupli­ca­tion.

Caregiver: Shawn — age 35 female
Clothing: 2X tops, 18–20 bot­toms, 8 1/2 size shoes

REQUESTED: Microwave, Bath tow­els, Vacuum clean­er, Walmart gift cards, Kroger food cards and gas cards.

Child #1: My’Onna – age 9 female
Clothing: Large Jr. teen tops, 16 Jr. teen bot­toms, 5 1/2 size shoes

REQUESTED: Clothes, Shoes, Hygiene prod­ucts, Barbie dream house, Headphones, Art sup­plies, and gift cards to dec­o­rate her room.

Child #2: Marshawn – age 7 male
Clothing: Size 10–12 tops, 10–12 bot­toms, 3 1/2 size shoes

REQUESTED: Clothes, Shoes, Marvel action fig­ures, Trucks, Sports equip­ment, and gift cards to dec­o­rate his room.

The fam­i­ly has just moved into their own hous­ing and need fur­ni­ture, washer/dryer and any help with food.

We will be hav­ing a wrap par­ty at Bev’s house (2133 Copley) on 12/13 @ 1 PM. We need wrap­ping paper and tape if you have some you would like to donate.

poster for our sponsor-a-family project
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We Are Hosting a Showing of The Last Class

Info for our showing of The Last Class film

Join us for a Screening of The Last Class at Cinemark Franklin Park 16 and XD: The Last Class is a nuanced and deeply per­son­al por­trait of mas­ter edu­ca­tor Robert Reich teach­ing his final course and reflect­ing on a peri­od of immense trans­for­ma­tion, per­son­al­ly and glob­al­ly. It is a love let­ter to edu­ca­tion. The for­mer Secretary of Labor might be famous for his pub­lic ser­vice, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, but he always con­sid­ered teach­ing his true call­ing. Now, after over 40 years and an extra­or­di­nary 40,000 stu­dents, Reich is prepar­ing for his last class.

Over the course of the film, Reich con­fronts the impend­ing final­i­ty, and his own aging, with increas­ing can­dor, intro­spec­tion, and, ulti­mate­ly, emo­tion. He dis­plays a raw­ness of feel­ing he has nev­er shared pub­licly before. Drawing on his life­time in pol­i­tics, he uses his class, “Wealth and Poverty,” to offer us all a deep­er look at why inequal­i­ties of income and wealth have widened sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the late 1970s, and why this pos­es dan­ger­ous risks to our soci­ety.

One thou­sand stu­dents fill the biggest lec­ture hall on the UC Berkeley cam­pus, the last class to receive Reich’s wis­dom and exhor­ta­tions not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation’s abil­i­ty to take on the fight is inspir­ing.

Humanists sup­port edu­ca­tion based on the truth, facts, and data. We also sup­port social jus­tice issues that Robert Reich talks about and we are also con­cerned about income inequal­i­ties.

Even if you can’t attend, you can buy a tick­et for some­one who wants to attend but can’t afford it. Feel free to share this event with your friends, fam­i­ly, and social cir­cle. Being a mem­ber of SHoWLE or a Humanist is not required. The film is open to all who buy a tick­et.

For tick­ets, vis­it our screen­ing web­page

https://bit.ly/lastclass-toledo2025

We met our min­i­mum tick­et sales on August 15th. Tickets are still avail­able. We can have 100 peo­ple.

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Petition Gathering has started to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1

Petitions to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1 have start­ed to be dis­trib­uted. SB 1 as it is known that was quick­ly passed at the start of the year, over the objec­tion of many uni­ver­si­ties and protests by stu­dents, would cen­sor uni­ver­si­ty class­es and is anti-union. It is also known as the high­er edu­ca­tion destruc­tion act and many of the points in the law scratch con­ser­v­a­tive bias­es about col­leges such as the pow­er of unions, not teach­ing how great cap­i­tal­ism is, and hate towards diver­si­ty, equal­i­ty, and inclu­sion.

For a break down of what is in SB 1 check out this explain­er sheet from AAUP Ohio and Honesty for Ohio Education:

Substitute Ohio Senate Bill 1 — Bill Breakdown

Upcoming Signing events:

Our friends at Toledo Troublemakers is host­ing a peti­tion sign­ing event on May 14th from 5:30 to 7 :30 PM at Earnest Brew Works Westgate 3134 W. Central , Toledo.

Findlay Forward Together will be hold­ing a SB1 Repeal Petition Signing Drive-Thru Thursday May 15th from 5 to 7 PM at 111 3rd St in Findlay.

When we hear about oth­er sign­ing events we will share them on social media accounts.

The con­ser­v­a­tives will be very picky about sig­na­tures so here are some basic rules:

  1. You must be a reg­is­tered vot­er to sign
  2. Make sure you sign the peti­tion that match­es your coun­ty
  3. You are only allowed to sign a peti­tion once

“With the title and sum­ma­ry lan­guage approval, peti­tion­ers can now start gath­er­ing sig­na­tures. About 248,092 sig­na­tures are need­ed — 6% of the total vote cast for gov­er­nor dur­ing the last guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion. The sig­na­tures must be from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties. The sig­na­tures would like­ly be due at the end of June. ”

For more infor­ma­tion check out this web­site:

OH SB 1 Petition

*Update 06/30/2025* - Even with a strong effort, the peti­tion dri­ve fell short by 50,000 sig­na­tures. The group behind the effort ran a tru­ly grass­roots dri­ve and did­n’t use paid peti­tion sig­na­ture col­lec­tors. SB 1 is a very unpop­u­lar law so hope­ful­ly those opposed to it will try again soon.

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Donate to sponsor a conference about human trafficking

The International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference, which is put on by the University of Toledo, Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute, recent­ly reached out to us to ask if we could spon­sor this years con­fer­ence that will be held vir­tu­al­ly in September. This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for SHoWLE to have our name out pub­licly in sup­port of an event that fits in with our val­ues.

They have spon­sor­ship lev­els with the low­est pack­age being $500 which would have our name and logo in the pro­gram and web­site and would pro­vide three one day tick­ets we could give out to donors.

Our goal is to raise $500 by June 30th for our spon­sor­ship. If you donate and want to attend we will have the tick­ets avail­able on a first come first serve basis. The largest spon­sor­ship pack­age is $5000 and each pack­age comes with more free tick­ets but our goal for now is $500.

We will donate any funds we raise to help with the con­fer­ence.

To donate for our spon­sor­ship fol­low the link below:

SHoWLE Sponsorship Campaign

Here is infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence from their web­site:

“Human traf­fick­ing is one of the most preva­lent and active crim­i­nal enter­pris­es affect­ing our local, nation­al, and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Responses to com­bat traf­fick­ing include pre­ven­tion, pro­tec­tion, pros­e­cu­tion, and part­ner­ship. The International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference is proud to be the host of the old­est and largest aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence on human traf­fick­ing in the world. As the world’s lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence on this top­ic, we serve as the hub through which prac­ti­tion­ers, pol­i­cy mak­ers, researchers, crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sion­als, busi­ness­es, health­care pro­fes­sion­als, social work­ers, and more become edu­cat­ed and equipped to pro­vide the best local and glob­al respons­es pos­si­ble. We remain com­mit­ted to edu­cat­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and we need your help!

The 22nd Annual International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference will be host­ed vir­tu­al­ly on September 17–19, 2025 and will high­light a vari­ety of skilled pre­sen­ters at the fore­front of both human traf­fick­ing and social jus­tice issues. This year’s con­fer­ence will fea­ture over 100 pre­sen­ta­tions and thou­sands of atten­dees tun­ing in from all cor­ners of the world. Attendees will learn how to iden­ti­fy risk fac­tors, improve respons­es for vic­tims, and learn how we can col­lec­tive­ly move for­ward with an agen­da for change.”

https://www.traffickingconference.com

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Resources to help support Democracy

People protesting in support of science

SHoWLE recent­ly cre­at­ed a new resource page that has links to tools and sources to help us sup­port democ­ra­cy.

These links include links to liked mind­ed groups and news sources that actu­al­ly cov­er the real news and not the cor­po­rate white-washed ver­sion we see most often.

The title of the new page is Supporting Democracy and can be found under our Resources menu on the web­site.

Also includ­ed is links to new videos cre­at­ed by President Doug Berger that helps the view­er set­up and use the My Ohio Legislature and GovTrack.us leg­is­la­tion track­ing web­sites.

If you have any sug­ges­tions or cor­rec­tions for this new resource please let us know.

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Resolution In Support Of The LGBTQ+ Community And Opposing Bigotry

The SHoWLE Board of Directors adopt­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment in sup­port of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty and to oppose big­otry. This state­ment can be found in our Policies and Resolution page of the web­site.

The Board of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie vot­ed on January 21, 2025, to “sign on” to a state­ment issued by a major­i­ty of the sec­u­lar, Humanist, and freethought groups in the coun­try affirm­ing our com­mit­ment to sup­port and pro­tect the rights of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty in this coun­try.

In a state­ment titled “Statement from American Atheist, Humanist, Freethought, and Secular Groups Affirming Commitment to Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights” 16 nation­al sec­u­lar groups affirmed:

“We will not per­mit reli­gious extrem­ists to foment a moral pan­ic, encour­age harass­ment or vio­lence, and enact dan­ger­ous poli­cies that seek to force LGBTQ+ Americans generally—and trans Americans in particular—out of pub­lic life and out of exis­tence. Nor will we sit silent­ly or ignore when the talk­ing points, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and out­right fab­ri­ca­tions of anti-LGBTQ+ extrem­ists are laun­dered and giv­en a veneer of legit­i­ma­cy or accept­abil­i­ty by those who hold them­selves out as voic­es of rea­son or sci­ence.”

The SHoWLE Board agrees 100% with the state­ment and we intend that our group will con­tin­ue to be a wel­com­ing place for all peo­ple no mat­ter who you are or who you love. Our Humanist val­ues demand it.

We need more com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing and much less irra­tional hys­te­ria. We need laws and poli­cies based on data and actu­al real­i­ty and not bias­es, reli­gious indoc­tri­na­tion, or tabloid anec­dotes.

SHoWLE also will not tol­er­ate big­otry from our state leg­is­la­ture, gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty, or our mem­ber­ship. We will call out that big­otry when need­ed. We will not sup­port or work with any group that sup­ports big­otry of any kind espe­cial­ly toward the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty.

Some peo­ple have said that recent attacks on the Trans com­mu­ni­ty have been only about dis­cussing sci­ence and biol­o­gy and that by not allow­ing that dis­cus­sion we are cen­sor­ing sci­ence. We reject that argu­ment.

Free speech argu­ments should nev­er be used to jus­ti­fy hurt­ing peo­ple and whether a group should have basic dig­ni­ty, and worth should nev­er be debat­ed.

No one should live in fear for sim­ply exist­ing.

Adopted January 2025

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SHoWLE To Move Away From Facebook

Facebook logo

Starting on February 1st, 2025, SHoWLE will reduce our use of Facebook. We will put in a sta­t­ic post point­ing vis­i­tors to our web­site but we will not update our pub­lic page, boost any posts, or cre­ate any new events.

We don’t make this deci­sion eas­i­ly but the change in polit­i­cal views of the CEO and oth­er actions tak­en by Meta, the own­er of Facebook, make our con­tin­ued use of the plat­form prob­lem­at­ic. If you are not aware of these issues check out the links at the end of this post for some details. In gen­er­al:

  • Donated $1 mil­lion to Trump’s inau­gur­al fund, while Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-A-Lago
  • Ended its fact-checking pro­gram to cater to the right-wing
  • Relaxed its rules on hate speech to allow hate­ful rhetoric against LGBTQ peo­ple, includ­ing as part of “reli­gious dis­course”
  • Deleted Facebook Messenger themes that used the col­ors of the trans­gen­der and bina­ry flags
  • Ended its DEI work and elim­i­nat­ed its chief diver­si­ty offi­cer posi­tion
  • Called for com­pa­nies to dis­play more “mas­cu­line ener­gy” (Zuckerberg) despite the over­whelm­ing dom­i­nance of men in the tech indus­try.

The fact-checking mod­er­a­tion was put into place a decade ago because Facebook was used to facil­i­tate eth­nic cleans­ing in a cou­ple of coun­tries. Not to men­tion now there will be more irra­tional posts about the harm of vac­cines and oth­er pro­mo­tion of woo.

We will keep our pri­vate group page for now but we intend to pro­mote a more open com­mu­ni­ty forum in the future off Facebook.

We rec­om­mend that our mem­bers also move away from Facebook but that deci­sion should be left up to each indi­vid­ual. In the links below is an arti­cle from EFF.org that shows how to block use of your data for prof­it mak­ing by Meta.

If you have any ques­tions about this new pol­i­cy, feel free to reach out to Doug or oth­er Board mem­bers.

For further information:

Meta ends its DEI pro­grams as Zuckerberg blasts Biden on Joe Rogan

Mark Zuckerberg Preps for More Ethnic Cleansing

Mad at Meta? Don’t Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

You can also find us on Bluesky as Toledo Humanist Community