It is Thanksgiving, with a special emphasis on being thankful, but all year I try to begin messages with appreciation for the people I am writing to. This habit reminds me each time to think of something that I can be grateful for before I move into my request or concern. So here is part of my Thanksgiving list, with requests:
Thank you to my family for sharing love—and for reconnecting after strained relationships. Hug your family in person or virtually.
Thank you to voters who cast ballots for city council and mayor. You chose representatives for the rest of the registered voters who didn’t get to the polls. Thank you to all the candidates who were willing to run for office—an enormous investment of time and personal energy. Greensboro will have a significantly different future, with new mayor and council members making decisions for our community during turbulent times. We must all respect the effort it will take for city council to balance the demands of all the different voices while wrestling with the reality of limited resources and legal constraints.
Thank you to Greensboro Farmers Market and Corner Farmers Market for giving coupons to customers with $0 balance on SNAP cards so they could purchase vegetables, eggs, and meat from farmers during the uncertainty of federal ping-pong games with SNAP. Throughout the year, donors to the markets’ food security programs are making it possible for families to eat and farmers to sell enough to make ends meet. While you plan Thanksgiving feasts, contribute to organizations that put food on the tables of neighbors whose paychecks are stretched thin.
Thank you to faith communities, nonprofit organizations, city, and county for trying to find ways to protect our neighbors without housing when the temperatures drop. Cardboard on concrete, with perhaps a blanket or tent overhead, is a dangerous way to sleep in any weather but especially cold or rainy. Winter emergency shelters in the city’s Doorway Project offer beds for 125 people and doors are open at Interactive Resource Center on White Flag nights when the forecasts are especially dire. What if we each donate several dollars to IRC and Greensboro Urban Ministry for each night we sleep in a warm bed?
Thank you to Equity Allies whose tireless work for medical debt relief is launching Healing without Debt Guilford to reach out to people burdened by medical bills they cannot possibly pay. We rarely have a choice about needing medical care for illness or injury, unlike carefully choosing a mortgage or student loan. Governor Stein’s recently announced $1.22 billion in forgiven medical debt for at least 301,991 patients in our region—including my friend with a hospital bill for $0 because the $5000 for emergency care has been forgiven.
Thank you to TEAM (tenant education advocacy mediation) attorneys and advocates who are in eviction court each week to assist tenants and their landlords to work out resolutions that preserve housing. Legal Aid and UNCG provide tenants with information, legal counsel, and access to rental assistance. Without this assistance, tenants usually lose housing and, with evictions on their records, cannot find new housing, while landlords rarely recuperate the lost income. We can advocate that the city and county extend their essential support for TEAM attorneys and rental assistance to keep people housed and our community stable.
Thank you to Doctors Without Borders, the international nonprofit organization providing medical care to the most vulnerable people in the world: victims of violence, forced displacement, disease, and hunger. Their rapid response to an Ebola outbreak near my Congo birthplace provided the Bulape hospital with equipment, medical, and public health support to quickly stop the deadly contagious disease. We can add our financial contributions for their response to disasters around the world.
Thank you!
Holy Spirit, Greensboro 