Can't Stop, Won't Stop! Fundraising for the VWC!
A nonprofit fundraiser supporting
Vermont Workers' Center - Jobs with Justice Inc$1,120
raised by 29 people
$1,000 goal
A love note to friends and family:
Hi Family!
I am YET AGAIN writing to you all to share another project and area of work in my life. Many of you heard from me last year about this time for the Vermont Workers' Center annual grassroots organizing campaign. Every year we bring together over 20 members of the organization to fundraise and sustain our work. I also have the privilege of being a part time staff member for this amazing organization.
It is through the Vermont Workers' Center that I organized with dozens of rural folks in the Northeast Kingdom for the 2018 March for Medicaid, went to Baltimore to hear from the leaders of the New Poor People's Campaign (continuing the last campaign of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), went to Brazil to study International Political Theory on a full scholarship and most recently start working on the internal systems for the organization- an area of work that has offered me deep learning experiences and invaluable life skills.
Some days I come home in tears because of the world we live in- because of my struggle or a friend's struggle or a neighbor's struggle. Some days I come home livid because of what is happening at a national or international level. Some days I come home exhausted because the struggle for justice never stops. But it is through the Vermont Workers' Center that I am offered some vision of hope for a different and better world where all people have a right to health and dignity regardless of who they are or where they come from.
I am writing today to ask you to consider donating to this organization, We are less than 50% grant funded - which is amazing in the world we live in AND allows us to do the transformational work that we do. BUT it means that it takes a village (and then some) to fund the work.
Regardless of your ability to donate- please know that your daily support of me through this journey has not gone unnoticed! I am so grateful to amazing friends and family who keep me going. If you are able please donate or share this message with folks in your communities who might be able to. Every little bit helps!
With all my love,
Liz
The Vermont Workers' Center has been a part of my life since I was a kid. At 12 years old I was going to rallies with my older brother and my parents- rallying for workers' rights, a livable wage and healthcare- all concepts and struggles that have formed me into the person I am today.
Even through all of the rallies, pickets and organizing meetings I witnessed as a child I still grew up watching everyone I know struggle through a horribly corrupt for profit health insurance system in Vermont and across the United States. I watched my family struggle through medical debt, my friends get sick and in some case pass away because of inadequate and unaffordable services for mental health and addiction support and at just 24 I started to rack up (into the thousands of dollars) my own medical debt as I battled Lyme disease.
We've been fighting for decades for our basic human right to healthcare. But this is more than a battle for health insurance or universal primary care- this is movement of poor and working class people coming together over a common struggle and a unified vision. It's about people across Vermont coming together across difference to fight for a better world. Here we believe that starts with everyone's right to healthcare- because each and everyone of us has been impacted by profit driven health insurance markets blocking our ability to access the care we need- everyone feels it and we need everyone to fight for it.
I have continued to work with the Vermont Workers' Center throughout my adult life and I am honored to now be a part time staff member working on our statewide operations and membership programs. I have the honor of working with dozens of AMAZING volunteer members who run and shape our organization and our campaign and who continue to teach me so much every day about the type of world I am fighting for.
This year I am joining dozens of VWC leaders because we Can't Stop, Won't Stop- Fighting for Healthcare! We are running our annual grassroots fundraising campaign hitting 20k in just 20 days! Please help me and help US as we build a movement for a better world!
This fundraiser supports
Vermont Workers' Center - Jobs with Justice Inc
Organized By Liz Beatty-Owens