Please Attend the September NWSOFA Chapter Meeting
“America’s Greatness ..
Built by A Nation of Immigrants”
“NWSOFA SEPTEMBER CHAPTER MEETING Combined with the OFA Greater Chicago Immigration Reform Team and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights”
Chapter Meeting @ Schaumburg
Diversity Outreach “Taste of Diversity”
September 28th @ the Schaumburg Library
130 S Roselle Rd, Schaumburg, Il 7 pm – 9 pm
Doors open at 6:30 for a “Meet & Greet”
FOCUSING ON DIVERSITY AND IMMIGRATION REFORM
Presenting facts not broad attacks about this important American Heritage – Immigration. A major focus of the September meeting will be to update all attendees on the current status of Immigration Reform
Unique to NWSOFA is the close bond of our new 2015 Diversity Outreach with the Immigration Reform Team. Updates on both fronts. Learn what you can do to be part of process and create clarity in the way America views our immigrants.
Key Presentations from the Experts:
America’s Greatness ..Built by A Nation of Immigrants
Kym Garnett: Is is the NWSOFA Diversity Outreach Team Lead. Her presentation will examine the evolution of Organizing for Action on progressive issue advocacy. As Kym says “the power of issue advocacy brings passionate volunteers together on specific issues they have identified and want to make a difference on nationally, statewide and locally. The development of strong, competent community organizers is the core foundation that empowers the individual and the chapter”. As you will see, Kym brings this passion to the issue of Diversity and Immigration Reform.
America’s Greatness Built by Immigrants
Alfredo Arceo Jr: Born in 1963. Immigrated to the USA at the age of 14. In 1977. Came here legally with a “green card” between than and now. So much has changed that, the dreams that I envisioned took a turn. And came to realize that. Those dreams were illusions. The TRUTH became my light and the truth is that We all are a nation of immigrants. This country Was founded by Immigrants. We can not sit back and Not take a stand to remind our elected officials that, Immigrants have always and will always contribute to making our country great.
Making America Great
Marlene Rivera: 30 years ago her mother and Marlene crossed the boarder illegally. Now Marlene is a US citizen, a college graduate with a Masters in Public Administration and current activist. Marlene has spoken to many groups across the Chicago area and been interviewed by Chicago Area TV and Radio..Per Marlene.. CIR is a path to strengthen our country and our world. Keeping the human and family ties Together….it’s a small world after all! And not flat!
Standing Strong 4 Real Immigration Reform
Patrick Watson: Graduated from North Central College in Dupage with a major in International Business. He resides in Barrington, Il and has been active in national and state political campaigns. He is also activist and has held several positions with Organizing for Action – Illinois as the Illinois Immigration Reform Coordinator.
Building our Future Together
Cindy G. Murillo: Northeastern Illinois University — BAIS and a member of Gamma Alpha Omega Sorority, Inc. She also is a Administrative Relief Fellow – Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, (ICIRR) to assist the immigrant groups with help applying for US Citizenship, DOCA, DOCA+ and DOPA along with the training of our
leadership on this CIR process.
Rocio Pulido : Administrative Relief Fellow – Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, (ICIRR) to assist the immigrant groups with help applying for US Citizenship, DOCA, DOCA+ and DOPA along with the training of our leadership on this CIR process. She’s a first generation American citizen of Mexican descent and a first generation college student as well. Her parents emigrated from Mexico almost thirty years ago. Being a child of immigrants and a first generation American citizen has influenced her career to and also sparked her interest in helping other students of color as well as students from marginalized groups gain access to higher education, succeed and eventually graduate.
Featuring updates from all 9 NWSOFA Progressive Issue teams:
A Taste of OFA:
ACA – Healthcare, CIR – Immigration Reform, Climate Change,Fiscal and Economic Issue Group, Stand With Women (on equal pay), Gun Violence Prevention, Marriage Equality,Diversity Outreach, College Outreach Teams.
In 2015 OFA have not only found their voices, we have amplified them and are now partnering with groups to build larger coalitions. Learn what you can do to amplify and focus the NWSOFA Voice in 2015
Get involved, attend, participate. and learn what you can do to be part of Change.
“NWSOFA & OFA stands with women-from expanding women’s leadership and economic security to protecting health care choices.”
The organization August meeting had a well organized agenda focused on the key SWW Issues this last month. For the month of September, Among the key topics: Economic Security, Equal Pay, Raising the Minimum Wage, Paid Leave and the conservatives attack on Planned Parenthood.
The gap between white men and everybody else in tech starts in high school. Teens of all stripes are glued to their smartphones, but, per a new study .. click on the title above to see the rest of the story.
September Meeting TBD
NWSOFA Global
Day Action with NWS Coalition on Climate
Downtown Arlington Heights Event
October 14th Event
Together with the
Northwest Suburbs Climate Change Coalition
In the NW Suburbs there are several climate change events in September and October and a few are listed below. As many of you already know many environmental groups and faith organizations are partnering in the NW Suburbs so our collective voice can be heard.
These groups include Organizing from Action, Sierra Northwest Cook County Group, Northwest Suburban Interfaith Environmental Group, Faith in Place, Community Renewal Society, Congregations of Faith, Climate Reality Project, Cool Cities, Illinois Solar Energy Association, Go Green Northbrook, as well as others.
Starting location: Our Savior’s Lutheran Church (1234 N Arlington Heights Rd, Arlington Heights, IL)
Sponsoring Organizations: Buffalo Grove Environmental Action Team, Climate Reality Project, Cool Cities Arlington Heights, Illinois Solar Energy Association, Interfaith Greens, NW Suburbs OFA, Sierra Club, Streamwood High School Eco Club.
6:30 pm Rally @ Our Savior’s Lutheran Church featuring music and speakers
7:00 pm March to a nearby park
7:30 pm closing vigil at Park in Downtown Arlington Heights (corner of Arlington Heights Road and Northwest Highway
Oct. 14 is going to be big: in cities and towns all across the country people and organizations are coming together to demand that our leaders #ActOnClimate.
OFA’s COI Has Great Organizing Training Coming up in the next few Months.
October 2-4 – Campus Organizing Summit
Join OFA at our Campus Organizing Summit to learn how to effectively make a difference on your campus on the issues you care about. You’ll learn the skills you need to move your issue forward– and get other students involved, too!
September 17th, @ The Corner Bakery Café (Arlington Heights, IL)
The GVP Issues Team has been working for the past two years to keep the conversation about gun violence prevention going forward and to take action to change our laws with the goal of creating safer communities for everyone in our state and our nation. We hold 60 to 90 minute meetings typically (some exceptions) on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm. If you are interested in working to reduce gun violence in America, we invite you to join us at our next meeting.
New Folks .. Direction on Meeting with Mayors
At the last meeting (Sept) everyone attending also got a packet of information and a short training session about ways to plan and conduct meetings with local elected officials to seek support for this legislation. At this meeting we reviewed the materials/training information and make plans to contact and meet with mayors and other elected officials.It is very exciting to see a path to action taking shape!
We will continue to have our on-going discussion about the economic costs of gun violence for our society along side of tragedy of loss of life and the moment people’s lives are altered forever at our monthly meetings. These human and economic costs are very high, billions and billions of dollars a year. Several groups that we have partnered with are beginning to talk about this issue. It is sad to say but sometimes it’s the economic costs that gain more traction than other arguments.
A huge THANK YOU to Joan for hosting and feeding us delicious food. For those members who couldn’t attend, we missed you very much.
What a fantastic meeting. The progress reports were amazing. The plans for the future are exciting. The possibilities for publicity and sharing information and news are growing. The instant information the computers and phones brought to us about people, dates, and answers to questions was extraordinarily helpful. Please visit this page to see all the information Bill has posted for our team. http://www.nwsofa.org/ resources/college-outreach/
Progress reports:
Faith prepared a fantastic animated introduction to any NWSOFA college outreach video or for Bill to put in the newsletter. She also informed us about details of the Harper Promise program…who can apply for it, requirements to stay in it, and benefits of it.
Khirsti prepared extensive packets of information for all of us about scholarships and grants, which we can put out at all the team meetings.
Kym told us about her exciting acquaintance with 2 young women, Rocio and Cindy, who want to get involved with us, and also bring voter registration to Northeastern.
Bill showed us Flipboard, an online magazine which collects links to articles on topics. He has set up a College Outreach page, and we should post articles. He reported on how many people click on links in the newsletter. He offered for us to use his portable pop-up booth as needed.
Renee reported that she talked to Harper College Director of Communications Phil Burdick who would be glad to speak at a chapter meeting about the Harper Promise Program, and that we are confirmed to receive an invitation to the volunteer fair.
Kathy has been posting articles on our social media pages.
Emil posted a short review of the documentary “Ivory Tower” on the College Outreach Facebook page
And … Much Much More ..
Announcement from the OFA COI HQ: OFA campus organizing summit, OFA headquarters downtown Chicago, Oct. 2-3
NWSOFA’s Fiscal and Economic Issues Discussion Group
This last Thursday Night the Group meet at the AHML
Click on Image for Larger View
Great Discussions Into the Facts about the Economic Recovery and Illinois Proposed Budget this last Thursday evening..
The discussion was centered around everything that is (NOT) going on with our state budget negotiations for the fiscal year that began July 1st, and the (LACK OF) progress on the federal appropriations for the fiscal year beginning October 1st.
As always, we had a detailed update on the August US jobs
Click on Image for Larger View
numbers that came out last Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statics (BLS) and the July IL numbers published late last month. As most of you probably saw, the second quarter GDP growth was revised up to a 3.7% annual rate. Some new participants attended so we did some deep dives into the BLS report on the unemployment 5.1% rate and the U-6 10% rate and the number of people that represents.
NWSOFA is a whole, diverse wonderful family of people who want to do more than talk about the social issues. We explore and dig deep on the facts and decide what actions we can take that can have an impact locally and nationally. NWSOFA members not only “talk the talk”, but we “walk the walk”.
All our teams have numerous events that will enlighten and inspire you and yes, challenge you to make the effort to make a difference.
We invite you to join us!
Follow NWSOFA on Social Media
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September Events ..
NWSOFA in Photos
NWSOFA Diversity Outreach & CIR Planning Meeting on September 18th
NWSOFA Gun Viollence Prevention Team (GVP) Meetging on September 17th
NWSOFA College Outreach Team (CO) Meetging on September 15th
NWSOFA Fiscal & Economics Discussion Group Meeting September 10th
NWSOFA SWW Holds Organizing Meeting August 4th
Fight for Progress in Style:
Click the Above Image to go to the Store
About NWSOFA
In January 2013 we started as a gathering of friends and neighbors from the NW Suburbs who wanted to continue to have impact on the progressive issues we voted for in 2012.This grassroots, bottom up movement spread across the country and sparked the creation of Organizing for Action, OFA National which now has Chapters all over the country. This is a non-partisan, volunteer organization that focuses on progressive issues we are committed to taking Action on to make a difference locally, statewide and nationally.
NWSOFA’s 1st Issue Team was right after the tragedy at Sandy Hook. The Gun Violence Prevention (GVP) team felt we needed accurate information and facts, events to teach others and actions we could take to make a difference on pushing for common sense gun violence prevention. That has been our basic format as new issues arose and team developed. We now have the GVP, ACA/Obamacare, Climate Change,Fiscal Issues and Stand with Women Issue Teams.Check out their individual pages to see all the events they have scheduled and to join the teams you want to make a difference with. Other teams are developing such as for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.
OFA National coordinates “Days of Action” that Chapters across the country will all do on the same day. Each team also has local events and may work with affiliate organizations i.e. Sierra Club, Al Gore Reality Project, etc. to combine like-minded groups on a local, state or national event.
In this type of organization there are numerous ways you can be involved with the teams and in other roles.We were looking for ways to get our events out and now have a Twitter Master, Kathy,and Press Lead, Kym.
Two new initiatives were introduced in January 2015 from OFA. The first one is to get more young people involved in progressives issues. We prioritized working with colleges to reach out to them. One of the major benefits of joining us is learning to be a community organizer. These skills can be beneficial for a lifetime. The second initiative is working with under served populations that traditionally have not a voice on issues that are crucial for them.
Thanks for stopping and hope you’ll stay and join us.
It’s time to Act .. It Is Time To Get Involved
Over the years the American Citizens have lost their voices, believing that we can not make a difference. We have been beat down by the constant droning noise of the conservative right. This onslaught has made us like sheep .. afraid to express our views. Not anymore! OFA gives us back our voices and by working together we are making change one issue at a time. Together we can and will make a difference.
Thank You to our NWSOFA Issue Leads in 2015
Dan Huntsha Climate
Nikki Gundimeda Stand w/Women
Just Click on the Photo to link the NWSOFA e-magazines daily & archived articles
Patrick Watson: Graduated from North Central College in Dupage with a major in International Business. He resides in Barrington, Il and has been active in national and state political campaigns. He is also activist and has held several positions with Organizing for Action – Illinois as the Illinois Immigration Reform Coordinator.
Downtown Arlington Heights Event
In January 2013 we started as a gathering of friends and neighbors from the NW Suburbs who wanted to continue to have impact on the progressive issues we voted for in 2012.This grassroots, bottom up movement spread across the country and sparked the creation of Organizing for Action, OFA National which now has Chapters all over the country. This is a non-partisan, volunteer organization that focuses on progressive issues we are committed to taking Action on to make a difference locally, statewide and nationally.
