Give Voice to Your Values; Take the ESTHER Bus to Madison on April 29!
Come with us on the bus to Madison on April 29, 2015. We will join people of faith from all over Wisconsin to learn, be inspired, and advocate for justice. We will gather at Bethel Lutheran Church just off the Capitol Square, to hear stirring speeches by Hannah Rosenthal, president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, and Rev. Everett Mitchell, pastor of Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Madison, and Community Relations Director for UW-Madison. After educational workshops and lunch, we will march to the Capitol to meet with our legislators and discuss prison reform, driver’s cards for immigrants, and public transit access and equity.
With help from ESTHER, a group of Latino soccer players is at last able to use public soccer fields and other facilities at Wittman Park in the Town of Menasha without being subjected to harrassment and racial slurs, and without indifference from Town officials. Gustavo Nunez, one of the players who took a lead role in seeking a resolution to the issue, stated, “We want to thank you and all of the people you worked to figure this situation out with us. After many years of playing with the fear of harassment and removal from the fields, we can finally say that we have been playing in peace this last month and since the beginning of your help.” ESTHER is proud to have worked with these courageous players to ensure that their voice was heard. Together we are encouraged by our collective action to make the community, particularly our public parks, more welcoming to all.
Mass mobilization and protest in Madison against anti-immigrant legislation currently being considered by the state legislature. Join WISDOM leaders, Voces de la Frontera and families from around the state to show your support for communities in which all are welcomed, honored, and protected. Stand up and raise your voice to challenge these racist, anti-immigrant bills.
Buses to Madison for the event leave St. Therese parking lot (Summer and Durkee St., Appleton) at 7 am Thursday (February 18th) morning. Call 920-475-0674 to reserve a place. If you wish to drive yourself to Madison, meet us at 10:00am at the state capitol.
Help spread the word about these bills and this event:
In the light of concerns about the climate of religious and racial prejudice and harrassment growing out of the Presidential election, the ESTHER Leadership Board, with support from ESTHER members and friends, adopted and published a statement of witness in the Appleton Post-Crescent on Sunday, December 4, 2016. The statement lifts up ESTHER’s hallmark values of inclusiveness, neighborliness, compassion, fair treatment, commitment to community, and the practice of hope.
Thank you to the 207 members and friends of ESTHER who added their names and provided the financial support to make publication possible. Click on the image to read the statement as published.
The past couple of weeks have been a tough battle to stop anti-immigrant and racist policies. Monday, February 13, thousands of Latino/a families, advocates and allies will come together in Milwaukee to speak out against these policies and to lift up the many ways the Latino community betters the lives of all Wisconsinites. The gathering is called A Day Without Latinos. People from all around the state are standing together with Latinos/as because we know our lives are interconnected.
We now have two full buses heading to Milwaukee from Appleton Monday morning. We are astounded by the outpouring of support! Local businesses, organizations, and individuals have come forward to help fund the buses, but we aren't quite there yet!
We are asking you—especially if you want to stand in support of this action but cannot make it to Milwaukee—to sponsor the second bus. We need to raise $300.
If you can give $10, $25, $50, $100 or more, you would be part of making this day possible!
Click below to give online by credit-card or sign up to show your support now and pay later.
Your gift is tax deductible. If we receive funds that exceed the cost of the bus, we will direct that additional support to Unidos por un Futuro Mejor in support of their work on leadership training and Latino organizing in the Fox Valley area.
As of Saturday morning, there are still a few places left on the second bus. Buses will leave St. Therese parish in Appleton at 7:55 am, returning to Appleton by 4:00 pm. Contact Basy at 920/739-1226 to reserve your place.
Muchas gracias for all you do to make ESTHER an organization that can be strong and flexible enough to quickly direct energy and funding into this critical work! Sí, se puede!
9:30 am-2:30 pm
Plumbers and Steamfitters UA Local 400
2700 Northridge Drive, Kaukauna
Join your Fox Valley friends for a fun, social and informative day as we learn together about the Wisconsin budget process and how to present our budget concerns effectively to our state representatives. A project of the Wisconsin Leadership Development Project (WiLD). Click 'Read more' for a flyer and a link to online registration.
Join over 800 WISDOM leaders from across Wisconsin at the state capitol to advocate and educate legislators and departments about issues in the proposed state budget, including criminal justice, environmental justice, public health, education and public transit!
Thursday, March 30, 2017
9:00 am–4:00 pm. Breakfast and networking at 8:00
Bethel Lutheran Church
312 Wisconsin Ave, Madison, WI
Featuring keynote speakers:
Rev. Alex Gee, pastor of Fountain of Life Covenant Church in Madison.
Ms. Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), a national watchdog group, investigating and exposing the undue influence of corporations in public policy.
Cost: $25.00 - includes lunch, materials, and bus transportation. Scholarships are available.
Buses to/from Fox Cities locations the day of the event.
ESTHER Organizer Bill Van Lopik has recently started a term as a Community Columnist for the Post-Crescent. In his inaugural column, which appeared on April 1 (no fooling!), he writes with passion and conviction about some “dominant narratives” that cause fear and suspicion and can blind us to the truth about our communities and our neighbors. He testifies to the power of a different approach, in which we work
… to build relationships among people from various ethnic backgrounds, economic status, race, cultures and religions. It is through these relationships that we understand that there are other stories, other realities and other narratives. It is easy to live in a bubble and only interact with people who look like us, act like us, talk like us and believe the same things we do. However, if we hope to build a community which values dignity and respect we are going to have to be a lot more curious and courageous about who we see as our neighbors.
“Voting according to values makes a huge difference in the process of policy change”
ESTHER is participating in a statewide WISDOM action on October 14 with a goal of knocking on 600 doors. This Integrated Voter Engagement project is focused on reaching out to those who are traditionally left out of the process – renters, people of color, women, students and low-income workers.
We are in need of volunteers to be a part of this outreach effort. Will you help?
EVENT:
Integrated Voter Engagement
WHEN:
October 14, 2017 9:30 am: Orientation 10:00 am–noon: Canvassing
WHERE:
Emmanuel United Methodist Church, 740 E College Ave, Appleton
Volunteers will have brief conversations with selected individuals at their doorstep, asking them about their issues and concerns and also seeking support for an ESTHER priority, The Faithful Citizenship Campaign (click on ‘Attachments’ below, or view/download here). The Faithful Citizenship petition asks our Wisconsin legislators to commit to cutting poverty in half over the next ten years and to reducing the racial disparities existing in childhood poverty.
Volunteers will be visiting portions of Appleton’s first and second wards near Columbus Elementary School. Additional rounds of volunteers will revisit this same neighborhood twice more in the coming year.
Come with us on the bus to Madison on April 29, 2015. We will join people of faith from all over Wisconsin to learn, be inspired, and advocate for justice. We will gather at Bethel Lutheran Church just off the Capitol Square, to hear stirring speeches by Hannah Rosenthal, president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, and Rev. Everett Mitchell, pastor of Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church in Madison, and Community Relations Director for UW-Madison. After educational workshops and lunch, we will march to the Capitol to meet with our legislators and discuss prison reform, driver’s cards for immigrants, and public transit access and equity.
With help from ESTHER, a group of Latino soccer players is at last able to use public soccer fields and other facilities at Wittman Park in the Town of Menasha without being subjected to harrassment and racial slurs, and without indifference from Town officials. Gustavo Nunez, one of the players who took a lead role in seeking a resolution to the issue, stated, “We want to thank you and all of the people you worked to figure this situation out with us. After many years of playing with the fear of harassment and removal from the fields, we can finally say that we have been playing in peace this last month and since the beginning of your help.” ESTHER is proud to have worked with these courageous players to ensure that their voice was heard. Together we are encouraged by our collective action to make the community, particularly our public parks, more welcoming to all.
Increasing Access to Transportation: 
state to show your support for communities in which all are welcomed, honored, and protected. Stand up and raise your voice to challenge these racist, anti-immigrant bills.
SAVE THE DATE
“Our State, Our Budget, Our Voice”
Thursday, March 30, 2017
ESTHER Organizer Bill Van Lopik has recently started a term as a Community Columnist for the Post-Crescent. In his inaugural column, which appeared on April 1 (no fooling!), he writes with passion and conviction about some “dominant narratives” that cause fear and suspicion and can blind us to the truth about our communities and our neighbors. He testifies to the power of a different approach, in which we work
ESTHER is participating in a statewide WISDOM action on October 14 with a goal of knocking on 600 doors. This Integrated Voter Engagement project is focused on reaching out to those who are traditionally left out of the process – renters, people of color, women, students and low-income workers.
