Buttons for Solidarity with Muslims

***UPDATE***

If you want buttons to share with your community, please contact me at maryah.converse@gmail.com or purchase them here.

There is renewed interest in Peace Be With you buttons due to the recent uptick in violence against Muslims (e.g. here, here, here and this one that was actually probably not a hate crime) and the recent bombs in New York and New Jersey. I have more informational cards and literally hundreds of buttons to give away, already paid for by the Women's Alliance of the Unitarian Church of All Souls, NYC.

I am covering postage costs. If you would like to make a donation, please go to LaunchGood.com and give to a project in a Muslim community of your choice. The team at LaunchGood, led by founder (and my friend) Chris Abdurrahman Blauvelt, work with each campaign to make sure that they are both as successful as possible, and that all donations go directly where they are needed. Your gifts there will be tax-deductible.

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Recently, I gave a presentation to the Women's Alliance of All Souls Unitarian Church about some pins I made with some other New York City Unitarian Universalists made to wear in solidarity with our Muslim and Arab neighbors. These buttons are meant to say "You're safe beside me" to Muslims and other Arabs we see on the subway and elsewhere.

A spontaneous motion was made during the Q&A to ask one of the Women's Alliance members, Deborah, to take pins with her to give away when she attends the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association next month. She will be there as a delegate of All Souls Unitarian Church, and as a board member of the national Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East. An equally spontaneous collection was taken to pay for more pins.

$360.26 !!

I'm honored. I'm humbled. Now what?

The original buttons were made at cost by volunteers at the Fourth Universalist Society of New York. On the scale these donations lead to, it's unreasonable to impose further on their goodwill, so I have charted a new course.

I have ordered 550 pins from Andrea Lerner, a local UUA staffer. New York area Unitarian Universalists may know her and her husband as faithfully running the bookstore at every district-level event in the recently dissolved Metro New York District of the UUA.

In order to explain more about the buttons, I printed 200 business cards at Moo.com with URLs for this page, UUJME and the UU Service Committee's page on Syria. I want to pin 2 buttons to each card, because as I noted in Q&A after my presentation, I usually give away my pins in pairs, "One for you and one to give away." This way, the explanation travels with the pins.

Meanwhile, I have initiated a conversation with my friends over at SMLX Good about whether we can do more under the banner of their 501(c)3 ... where, full disclosure, I'm on the Board of Trustees.