SAVE THE DATE!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH,
2008
Social Justice Works: The Aaronson Fund
First Annual Awards Presentation and Party
Hotel Marlowe Cambridge, MA
Dear Friends and Donors,
On behalf of the Planning Committee of Social Justice Works (SJW),
we would like to thank you
all very much for your support of this important endeavor. The
evening of September 8, 2007
was a very special night for all of us, and, hopefully, for all
of you.
We trust that all donors have received a letter
of appreciation and gratitude from Cambridge
Community Foundation (CCF), a 501 (c)(3) charity. The Planning
Committee, nevertheless,
writes this letter to acknowledge our own personal thanksgiving
and, in doing so, report back to
you our remarkable success to date. The success of our kick-off
event on September 8th 2007 far exceeded all of our hopes and
expectations. Approximately 500 people attended the retirement
celebration/fundraising event and, because of your tremendous
generosity, we have already
raised more than $45,000. Cambridge Community Foundation requires
that we raise $20,000
in three years in order to achieve perpetuity for our endowment.
We have raised twice that in
less than four months! The majority of these donations were gifts
of $50 to $250 and we now
have a list of well over 500 donors.
Clearly, our news of the founding of SJW has spread much interest
and excitement far beyond
the Cambridge community. This fund actively acknowledges the
proud legacy resulting from the
many progressive educators who have taught and promoted social
justice. Hopefully, this en-
deavor will resonate throughout our respective networks, and
in the future we will be able to
publicize the many successful works of so many of our Cambridge
Rindge and Latin School
(CRLS) graduates (yes, Social Justice Works!). We are inspired
to carry on our work because of
these many accomplishments in the public/non-profit sector.
We intend to issue one, and eventually two, newsletters a year
to update our friends and donors
on everything from our future plans for awarding grants, to our
future fund-raising campaigns
and events.
A Second Annual SJW Fall Event in is the works
for September/October 2008 that will both ac-
knowledge and celebrate our first grant recipients, as well as
continue our aggressive fundrais-
ing. SJW's goal is to raise between $250,000 and $500,000 within
3 years. We intend that our
fund not only recognize and celebrate on-going social justice
work by CRLS graduates, but,
equally importantly, establish a supportive network of CRLS activists
that will promote the shar-
ing of their good works, while at the same time the foundation
raises more funds.
In order to accomplish these ambitious goals, the SJW Planning
Committee needs to re-organize
itself to meet the mandates of the Cambridge Community Foundation
(CCF). We currently have
a small SJW Executive Committee (The Kitchen Cabinet) that includes
several members of the
Planning Committee. We also have a larger Advisory Board of Friends
and Donors (which cur-
rently includes those who attended the September 8th event and
will include future donors).
Within the Executive Committee, we intend to have several Sub-Committees.
The members of
these Sub-Committees (or "working committees") will
include one or more members of the Ex-
ecutive Committee plus members of the Advisory Board of Friends
and Donors.
We are actively recruiting new volunteers to staff these working committees, which include:
· A Development Sub-Committee that will recruit,
assess and then select activists worthy of our
stated goals and submit those names to CCF and take on the task
of grant writing (grants to SJW
that will support our fund-raising and social justice efforts);
· An Event Planning Sub-Committee that is charged with organizing
our next benefit;
· A Communications Sub-Committee that will have the responsibility
for writing a SJW newslet-
ter, setting up our SJW website (www.sjwtheaaronsonfund.org),
and establishing a blog to dis-
cuss the trials, tribulations and tri-umphs of social justice
works.
If you would like to work on one of these Sub-Committees,
please send a note to us ASAP at
Social Justice Works
at the Cambridge Community Foundation
99 Bishop Allen Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139
or email
Larry Aaronson
If you would like to make a tax-exempt
contribution to SJW, please send those to CCF also.
Thank you all again for your generous and continuing support.
We look forward to hearing more
from you.