Dear Friends, Last night I spent a few hours volunteering at the Save Darfur Coalition. Basically, the Coalition is an alliance of over 150 faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organizations. The mission of the group is to lobby for federal assistance to stop the senseless killing of innocent Sudanese in the Darfur region.
Currently, Save Darfur is planning a massive rally on the National Mall to raise awareness about the genocide. The rally, which is set for April 30th, is part of the "Million Voices for Darfur" campaign to generate one million postcards for delivery to President Bush.
My main duty last night was to enter people's names and addresses onto a spreadsheet. (Wahoo!) In any other setting it would have been a mundane task, but I got really into it. I might not be able to go to Sudan and fight the Janjaweed, but I definitely can type---and type fast I can.
As I read the letters and postcards that people sent in, I was touched that so many Americans really care about what's going on in Darfur. The postcards came from Farmville, Virginia and Sunnyvale, California. They came from Philadelphia and New York and DC. I read letters from a seventh grade class in Aurora, Colorado; I processed postcards that were collected at Carleton College. It reaffirmed my faith in people.
The guy working next to me, who was named Ben and who was spending his Passover holiday as a volunteer, was collecting letters and postcards from every congressional district. Ultimately, he hopes to present a folder to every congressman (and woman) with postcards from citizens in their district. Thus far, he has received a lot of letters from Massachusetts, California, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, but still needs letters from many other states---including Utah.
So I told him that I would talk to my wonderful friends in Utah and try to enlist their help. If you're interested, all you need to do is write a short letter or postcard telling President Bush that you are concerned with what's going on in Darfur and ask him to help the Sudanese refugees. Even one or two sentences would do!
Please mail it as soon as possible to:
Save Darfur Coalition
2120 L Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037
If you don't have the time to write a physical letter, you can send in an e-postcard to the Million Voices for Darfur Campaign. For more information about Darfur, you can visit the Save Darfur Coalition's website.
Your friend,
Caroline (who wants to save the world, but only has ultra-fast typing powers to show for it)
