Families Belong Together Community Cookout ~ Friday, August 3

What if we told you a simple cookout could help liberate and reunite families separated at the border? 

Trump’s executive order from June jails entire families indefinitely and does nothing to reunite most of the families that have already been torn apart. Children are still being kept in cages. They are being traumatized, plain and simple. You can make a difference.

This weekend, People’s Action affiliates around the country, including WV CAG, and their supporters will be hosting Families Belong Together Community Cookouts to bring together friends, family and neighbors to raise money and help migrant families get out of detention and reunited with their children. The money raised at Community Cookouts will be used to help families post bond for their release from detention and to pay for travel that will bring families back together.

Click here to RSVP for our Families Belong Together Cookout, Friday, August 3 at the WV CAG office in Charleston.  

Can’t attend? You can still help reunify children separated from their families at the border by donating here to pay for airfare, hotel, and personal items for children and parents released from detention; or signing up to host your own cookout with your family, friends, and neighbors. 

Thank you for taking action to help liberate and reunite families!

Following Up on Last Week’s Opioid Town Hall

It was wonderful to see about 200 people packing St. John’s church last Thursday for the opioid town hall we co-sponsored with our friends and allies. Thank you to everyone who came out and to all who helped make this event possible!

In case you missed it, you can view the live stream here, and see the presentation from keynote speaker, Susan Shepherd of the Toronto Drug Strategy Secretariat, here. 

We were disappointed – though not surprised – to see Charleston Mayor Danny Jones’ reaction to the town hall on social media the next day:

Many of us are personally affected by the opioid crisis and our families are suffering everyday. Charleston needs real solutions to our drug epidemic. We need open discussion and new ideas. This is not the first time Mayor Jones has tried to bully people who disagree with him. We hope it will be the last.

We call on current mayoral candidates to publicly denounce Mayor Jones’ scare tactics and pledge to engage in open dialogue with public health experts, faith leaders, and community members about our drug epidemic.

Click here to urge Charleston mayoral candidates to publicly denounce Mayor Jones’s scare tactics, and pledge to engage in open dialogue on this issue – with Charlestonians of all walks of life.

We’ll stay in touch about next steps from the forum. In the meantime you may be interested in attending the upcoming screening of the documentary “Recovery Boys” followed by a Q&A with the director on August 15th at 7pm at the University of Charleston Geary Auditorium. Please RSVP here.