Fwd: A death in the family

We're all in for Bill McKibben's Do The Math! campaign.  Now, read Working Families Party Exec. Director, Dan Cantor's email below

for how you can help spread the truth.  Many of us were lucky in this latest storm, but too many were not. 

Pauline Schneider, 

District Manager

Independent Consultant

Arbonne International

ID#: 12862130

Transition Westchester Core team member

(914)886-8506

http://paulineschneider.myarbonne.com/

http://www.transitionwestchester.org/default.html

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Begin forwarded message:

Pauline, We really are all connected. Hurricane Sandy was an equal opportunity destroyer, whether in New Jersey or New York. Listed below are groups that are working to provide aid to the "power-less," especially poor people living in public housing. No light, no heat, no water. We urge you to donate as generously as you can. It has been two weeks since the storm, but our hearts are still heavy. We want to take a minute to also talk about those who died, and what this all means. Sandy killed nearly 200 people in the U.S, in Haiti, in the Bahamas.  Each death tore apart someone's heart. That included us. On the morning after the storm, the Working Families "family" learned that the daughter of two of our most beloved and dedicated leaders was killed when a tree fell on her and a friend. Her name was Jessie Streich-Kest. Her friend Jacob Vogelman also perished. She was 24, he was 23. Jessie was in her first year as a high school teacher in New York City. She was one of those lucky young people who figured out early in life what she wanted to be. She had worked hard to qualify for the difficult job of teaching 10th grade Special Education students, and she loved it. Friends of the family could tell that she was poised for a long career as an educator, a valued colleague, and a leader both in her profession and in her union.  People die every day, of course. But there is no pain greater than losing a child, and every parent reading this knows the fear of not being able to reach a child, of breathing a sigh of relief when fears turn out to be unfounded. Sometimes, of course, the news is bad. When it's a so-called natural disaster, some people blame fate, others God, still others just bad luck.  But it's really not about luck at all, and this is why we're writing to the many WFP supporters who did not know Jessie or anyone else hurt in this hurricane. A few days ago, an environmental thinker and writer named Bill McKibben made a point worth repeating.  It is time, he wrote, that we stop giving these storms the names of people, and start naming them after fossil fuel companies. McKibben's point is that global warming makes normal storms into terrible ones, and terrible ones into killers. The oil and coal companies are the biggest contributors to the global warming that causes sea levels to rise and the waters to warm, which in turn boost the awesome, terrible power of a hurricane. They fund the lobbying and political campaigns that guarantee that we do nothing real to challenge climate change. And they fail to accept any responsibility for the death and destruction that result.  If you are the kind of person who likes to connect the dots, consider this: just before the election, Chevron just made the single-biggest corporate campaign contribution of all time, giving $2.5 million to some god-awful super PAC that they know will keep profits high and responsibility low. What does a 24 year-old teacher mean to an oil company, after all? The WFP was formed 15 years ago with a simple purpose: Tell the truth. Tell the truth about our society and what we owe each other. Tell the truth about what it's going to take to put our country and world on a better path.  Like McKibben, we cannot help but think that the cost of inaction is too high. We are therefore asking you to consider two actions.  First, send money to relief efforts along the Atlantic coast. In New York City, below are five groups working to coordinate relief in some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods.  And second, please join us in standing with 350.org, the organization founded by Bill McKibben to tell the truth about climate change, and sign their petition. We need to send a message to the oil companies and ask them to STOP funding election and lobbying campaigns and START using the money for recovery efforts.  It's the least they can do.  You can sign the petition here, and forward it on as you see fit: http://act.350.org/sign/sandy-wfp/ Thank you for reading.  Dan Cantor WFP Executive Director P.S. -- Please donate whatever you can to these organizations doing fine work to help the recovery across New York. Some of these are general donation pages -- make sure to designate your contribution for Hurricane Sandy relief: Red Hook Initiative New York Communities for Change Make the Road NY Island Harvest Occupy Sandy Become a WFP fan on Facebook.  Follow the WFP on Twitter. Become a WFP Sustainer! Other political groups have corporate donors. We have you. Just $5 a month supports our fight for a better New York.  This is a message from the Working Families Party. To change your email address or update your contact info click here To remove yourself from this list, click here