A few times each year we collect a special Sunday offering, known as our Social Action Shared Offering or SASO. In the spring our SASO recognized the important work of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in NY and in June the work of Hospice of St. Lawrence Valley (also honoring with the Rachel Grant award recipient members of our congregation who have done important volunteer work for Hospice). Together, we collected $1,285, and we acknowledge the generosity of our congregation.
The SASO for September will be received on behalf of the Workers Center of Central New York. This worker-based organization has been helping farmworkers for decades to recapture stolen wages, know their health and safety rights, demand safer working conditions, gain access to needed medical care and other services, and obtain protections under the NYS Labor Laws currently denied them. In a recent effort to win the right to collective bargaining enjoyed by all other workers in the state, the WCCNY (along with other organizations) helped a Lewis County farmworker file a lawsuit against NYS for unfair and unconstitutional labor laws. If won, this case could bring an end to the last remaining racist Jim Crow law in New York State that excludes farmworkers from the right to organize.
For more information, see the Social Action Bulletin Board in the Social Room and go to www.workerscentercny.org.