Letter from the President: An Open Letter to the Artists Who Once Again Raised Thousands of Dollars for CVRAN
Monday, April 4, 2023
This is a wonderfully warm and official thanks from the Central Vermont Refugee Action Network. Once again you artists have provided the largest part of CVRAN’s income stream for the year. Your hard work this month in creating daily art for a group of sponsors has raised about $45,000 for CVRAN!
Our mission, of which you now are a part, is to welcome refugees, asylum seekers, and migrant workers to Central Vermont. You are letting us welcome a new person from Africa who wants to be a dentist. You are allowing us to help a college student take another class, while she translates at a hospital to make ends meet. Imagine, she spoke no English when she arrived in the United States with her family, as one of our very first guests! You are providing gas money for trips to asylum appointments in St. Albans, Boston, and New York City. You are aiding a host family with incidentals to make hosting more possible. You are allowing CVRAN to employ its first part-time staff, someone to coordinate care for our three Spanish-speaking families. You are helping Afghan families send their children to camp, and providing some grocery money to a Eurasian man while he looks for a job in technology, having just received his work permit! Also, you are helping rent a Montpelier church for the Mobile Mexican Consulate to come serve migrant workers. This is just the tip of what your dollars do. Your efforts are the primary source of income for CVRAN, and cover the bulk of our yearly budget. Thanks for putting your whole selves and your creativity into this project. Twenty-nine new neighbors are benefitting, plus many others more informally allied with us.
In this sometimes dark world, we all need hope. You artists contributed your month of March, hoping you could make a difference in the lives of these asylum seekers and refugees. At the same time, our new neighbors come to Vermont hoping for a new beginning after fleeing horrific circumstances in their home countries. Their hope, despite all they have gone through, is inspiring. When your hope to be of service reaches out to support their life hopes, momentum is created. Thanks for helping to build a caring community that can support these families in working toward their goal of a new home in a new country.
The March Arts Marathon would not be possible without the leadership of Nicola Morris and the technology expertise of Ben Witte, whom we also thank profoundly. All of you are a wonderful team. Some of you are on your third year of the marathon, and we hope to see many of you again for next year. In the interim you are welcome to sign up as a volunteer and/or come to our annual meeting on Tuesday, April 18th, at the Unitarian Church in Montpelier.
Many thanks, and to future connections,
Rachel Walker Cogbill, President
Central Vermont Refugee Action Network