1. The highlight of our meeting was Bill’s phone call report of his experiences volunteering in Virginia. He has such positive things to say about his housing, his view and the new friends he is making, that we call had volunteer envy–maybe more of us will join him next time.
2. We have decided to take a break from out regular meetings until January. If things go well in Virginia, we’ll have a party. Watch for details.

• Action Items
• Join our new member Grita and Jane every Friday 3:-5:00 pm in front of the downtown Berkeley Toyota Dealer to protest Toyota’s support of Trump’s plan to rollback environmental standards for cars.
• Encourage your friends to load their phones with the free App Vote With Me which is especially good for getting younger voters invested since they don’t want their friends to see that they failed to vote. Can our slightly aged group bring about a viral sign-up? Let’s see.

• Ann has put this together for us:

Five-minute Actions to Help Interned Immigrant Children                                                               At the U.S.-Mexico Border

Many Americans are concerned about the health and wellbeing of immigrant children held in detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border, but some concerned people have limited free time and feel that they cannot respond effectively to this situation. I have found some ways for them to express their support for immigrants in less than five minutes a day.

Signing a petitionJeff Merkley, a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, has an online petition for reuniting immigrant families at the border.http://www.jeffmerkley.com  go to reunite immigrant families. (can search for “merkley immigrant families”)The ACLU, saying that separating families is inhumane, has a petition at:https://www.aclu.org/action/You can find other petitions with a search—“reunite immigrant families”

Making a donationYou can donate your frequent flier miles to Lawyers for Good Government to help cover travel expenses for immigrants and refugees as well as for attorneys working pro bono to represent them. You can also make a financial donation.http://www.lawyersforgoodgovernment.orgAfter immigrants leave the detention centers, many stop at—Catholic Charities of Rio Grande Valley in McAllen, Texaswhere they receive food and clean clothing. You can make a general financial donation or go to their Amazon wish list.http://www.catholiccharitiesrgv.orgThere are many non-profits asking for online donations. Be careful. You can check their qualifications at—www.charitynavigator.org

Contacting your representative and senatorsCalling—Call the Capitol Switchboard 202 224 3121Open 24 hours. You give them your zip code, they connect you to appropriate offices.Sending email, writing letters—https://www.usa.gov/elected-official for contact information.

Being supportive of immigrantsRAICES—Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Serviceshas a Cartas de Corazon program.  In Texas, RAICES distributes greeting cards with supportive handwritten messages (in Spanish) to immigrants. Volunteers buy blank greeting cards, write messages (provided by RAICES) in them, and mail the group of cards to Texas. Names and addresses of volunteers are not on the cards.               https://www.raicestexas.org/volunteer/go to “remote volunteer activities”