Thank you again for checking out my poetry page to benefit the Center for New Americans. This is my fifth year! Every year more people sign up and my fundraising total rises. The first year I was worried I wouldn’t be able to raise $1000. Last year's final count was $2550. You are amazingly generous and amazingly loyal, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Not only does your contribution, whether it's $5, $40 or $200, serve an excellent organization, it provides me with thirty draft poems that I get to work on the rest of the year. Poems inspired by this campaign have been published in Blue Unicorn, War, Literature and the Arts, Sparks of Calliope and Rattle and have earned finalist placements in the Bob Collen and Poets Seat poetry contests. But even better than publication is the fact that I know firsthand the donations are going to a remarkable organization, one that meets immigrants where they are - excited, confused, hopeful, anxious, frightened, brave - and helps them day-by-day to reach their goals: new language skills, an education, a job, the means to support their family, and the opportunity to give back to the community that welcomed them in a time of need. Thank you again for all the good you are doing.
