Make a gift to WIN during March and it will be doubled!

WIN members KC and Jeff Warren will double your gift to WIN during the month of March!

Gifts from members like you are WIN's number one source of support. Without your generosity, we can't stand up against wage theft or organize for living wages.

This month is an excellent time to make a gift to WIN, because your gift will be doubled! WIN members KC and Jeff Warren have agreed to double any gift you make in March.

The Warrens have agreed to match up to $4,000 in gifts during March. So far, our generous members have given $2,586. Can you  help us reach our goal of $4,000 with a gift?

If you join WIN's Allies for Justice monthly giving program, the Warrens will double all your monthly gifts for 2012! Monthly giving is convenient for you, because you don't have to remember to send in your gift.

Monthly giving also saves WIN's resources and stretches your gift farther. Less effort to ask for your gifts means WIN has more resources for workers facing injustice.

Make your gift securely online, or mail your donation to WIN, 3035 Directors Row, B - 1207, Memphis, TN 38131.

Honor their struggles, take up their unfinished work

    There are several people I think of as "justice giants." They are people who gave themselves whole-heartedly to the struggle for labor justice. I think of people like T.O. Jones and Rev. Henry Logan Starks, a sanitation worker and pastor who gave leadership to the 1968 sanitation strike in Memphis.

    I am awed by what these leaders accomplished. But I would be doing them a dis-service by just admiring them. That's why I try to continue their unfinished work - just as you do - with my involvement with Workers Interfaith Network.

    I invite you to honor the work these justice giants have done, and continue their work, by becoming a sponsor of WIN's 9th annual Faith and Labor Picnic. Each sponsorship level honors a different "justice giant" who has been steadfast in upholding the rights of workers.

    How does your sponsorship continue the legacy of these workers? Your sponsorship gift will allow WIN to keep campaigning with University of Memphis workers until all of them are paid a living wage. WIN will soon be launching a new campaign against wage theft, which your sponsorship will also make possible.

    You might not realize it, but $1 out of every $7 raised for WIN this year will come from the Faith and Labor Picnic. That is, if folks like you will help us reach our goal of raising $24,500 from the Picnic. The majority of funds raised come from sponsorships from individuals like you, labor unions, community groups, and businesses.

   Wondering which justice giants your sponsorship will honor?

Your $10 sponsorship honors Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers union in California.
Your $25 sponosrship honors Alzada Clark, a pioneering union and civil rights activist who organized workers throughout the Mid-South.
Your $50 sponsorship honors A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a leader of the March on Washington.
Your $100 sponsorship honors "Mother" Mary Jones, a travelling labor crusader who was arrested many times for her support of strikes in the early 20th century.
Your $250 sponsorship honors Cesar Chavez, the founder of the United Farm Workers union.
Your $500 sponsorship honors T.O. Jones, the Memphis sanitation worker who spear-headed the 1968 strike by AFSCME.
Your $1,000 sponsorship honors Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement in the mid-20th century.
Your $2,500 sponsorship honors Rev. Henry Logan Starks, an AME pastor who provided critical support to the 1968 Memphis sanitation strikers.

    If you are as inspired by these women and men as I am, please help us continue their legacy of uniting workers and people of faith into a strong voice for justice by becoming a Picnic sponsor today.

Have you "liked" Workers Interfaith Network on Facebook? When we reach 1,000 fans WIN will give away a VIP Faith and Labor Picnic prize package to one of our fans.

Community Foundation Will Match Your Gift to WIN

    I have some great news. Workers Interfaith Network has been awarded a $5,500 challenge grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis! The grant will increase our ability to bring together even bigger numbers of workers and people of faith to act for justice.      

     But the grant comes with an important requirement that I need your help to meet. In order to receive the grant, WIN must raise an equal amount - $5,500 – from generous members like you. Can you make a gift of $30, $50, $100, or more to help us reach our goal? If that’s more than you can afford, a gift of any size will help.

            

    And remember, whatever amount you give, it will be doubled through the challenge grant from the Community Foundation.

            

    Through your generosity and your action, you have helped WIN accomplish so much through the years. Thank you for standing up for justice with workers here in the Mid-South.

            

    Because we’re so busy at WIN acting for a living wage, working to stop wage theft, and training workers on their rights, sometimes other things have to wait.

Important things like purchasing a computer server that will save our files in case a computer crashes. (Unfortunately a crash happened last year. It wasted a lot of time I would like to have used to take action for workers’ rights!)

Important things like developing a Spanish-language newsletter to keep our Workers’ Center members up to date on WIN’s work. We have 35 worker members now, but we aren’t doing a good enough job keeping them informed.

    But the great news is that the Community Foundation’s grant – and the gift that you give – will help us take care of some of those important things that we have always had to wait on in the past.

    The grant is for “capacity building.” The term may sound complicated, but what it means is making sure that WIN has the basics covered so that we’re strong enough to take action with workers. Because I have a computer that is so slow that I can’t always access email, sometimes it keeps me from sending out an urgent action alert to you. Then you miss out a chance to stop wage theft with a worker who is counting on your support.

    Up-to-date technology and better English and Spanish communications with all of our members will allow WIN to do more in the fight for workers’ rights. We can build a bigger movement of more Mid-Southerners who will:

• Organize with workers at the University of Memphis for a living wage. Every University worker should be paid enough to at least meet her basic needs, without having to work more than one full-time job.
• Press members of Congress from the Mid-South to co-sponsor new federal wage theft legislation. This ground-breaking legislation was introduced last week. It will help the Department of Labor stop employers who steal workers’ wages from them.
• Train workers on how to stay safe on the job. WIN’s trainings teach workers everyday safety skills. Most importantly, workers practice how to say no when the boss orders them to do something so dangerous that it could kill them.

     Please help us build a stronger, more efficient Workers Interfaith Network so we can tackle these worker rights’ struggles. Each dollar you give will be matched by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis’s challenge grant. Thank you for helping WIN take advantage of this incredible opportunity.

Want your gift doubled by the Community Foundation? 

Give now.

Our progress in reaching the goal for the Community Foundation grant (as of 10/20/2010):