Families Belong Together
Help Riverside Respond to Family Separation

Despite President Trump’s Executive Order this week, his administration’s zero tolerance policy is still destroying families and lives. Children who have been separated from their families have been flown thousands of miles to facilities right in our own backyard. And there still are no plans to reunite these children with their parents.

Pastor Amy has been in conversation with city and national leaders all this week to determine how best we can lend our resources and our voice. Here is how Riverside is responding:

Offering our Space:  This past week Councilman Mark Levine collected diapers and other supplies for kids who have been flown in to NYC. The response to the request for donations he received was so incredibly overwhelming that they are no longer accepting items. They have too much and no room to store everything! So, Riverside is serving as a storage and distribution center for these items until they are taken to the children. It’s one small expression of care in gut wrenching circumstances.

Donating:  Here are a list of non-profit organizations providing legal and social services to support children brought to NYC after being separated from their families. Your financial support to these organizations will help them provide professional and expert care.

  1. Abbott House: currently housing some of the children brought here from the border, they are an established social service and foster care agency.
  2. The Safe Passage Project: an immigrant legal services program for unaccompanied minors and refugee children separated from their parents.
  3. The New York Immigration Coalition: advocating for immigrant rights in NYC and nationally.
  4. Make the Road New York: grassroots immigrant advocacy organization that’s been deeply engaged in fighting against the family separation policy.

Showing Up:  Make your voices heard demanding justice for immigrant families.

  • This week: Pastor Amy will also be joining a delegation of female clergy headed to the Texas border next week to see the conditions created by this cruel immigration policy. Follow Riverside on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to stay up to date on the latest updates from this trip.
  • Saturday, June 30: March to End Family Separation starting at 10:00 a.m. in Foley Square. The march will lead from Foley Square across the Brooklyn Bridge. Find out more here.

Scripture tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but rather of power and love.  Let us act out of that spirit now and boldly proclaim God’s vision of justice, wholeness, and restoration for our world.

Pastor Amy is joining a delegation of of 11  women faith leaders who will travel to the Texas/Mexico border to confront the Trump Administration’s cruel and immoral family separation and family detention policies which treat people seeking safety from violence as criminals and incarcerates entire families. Click here to see the complete collection of Dispatches from the Border.