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ACTIONS
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I-HELP PROGRAM I-HELP (Interfaith Homeless Emergency Lodging Program) recently celebrated the First Anniversary of helping the people living on the street. I-HELP offers safe housing, meals, and connections to community services to homeless people in Tempe. The program is administered by Tempe Community Action Agency (a private, non-profit, charity). There are now seventeen Tempe Faith communities involved with I-HELP. Some of the congregations host the program in their buildings, some supply the meals, some do both. Tempe Quakers provide evening meals the first Friday of each month. We've been so busy putting the program together this first year that we have done too little to invite others to join this Tempe-based compassionate response to homelessness in our community. Consider this your invitation. We would like to make you a part of the I-HELP family. If you have an interest in our efforts we invite you to "come and see." Susan Ringler is Director of Operations and can be reached at 480-350-5893 at suuer@tempeaction.org or Carolyn Thompson, Tempe Quakers at 480-248-7575 or jthomp9116@aol,com
Financial Contributions Friends do not "pass the hat" for donations, or request a financial pledge, but we welcome any contributions. If youd like to make a contribution to the Meeting, you can (1) drop it in the small wooden box in the Library (labeled Contributions: Tempe Friends Meeting), or (2) put it in an envelope in the Treasurers slot in the Mulit-Purpose Room, or (3) send it by mail to the Treasurer, at the following address: Tempe Friends Meeting
Your contributions to Tempe Monthly Meeting could support the following: I-Help
Planned Giving If you have some assets that you would
like to contribute to the Meeting, there’s a way to do that, and
earn yourself some money. With a Charitable Giving Annuity, if you make
a gift through Friends Fiduciary Corp. with the Meeting as a beneficiary,
you can earn a high interest rate and get federal tax benefits. At your
death, whatever remains goes to the beneficiary. The interest earned
is a function of age, with a minimum age of 50, and a minimum gift of
$5,000. At age 60, as of 7/1/06, for a $10,000 gift, the interest earned
was 5.7%; at age 90, it was 11.3 %. For more information, contact Ed
Kearns, 480-831-3351. Our Statement About IRAQ The following Minute, regarding hostilities with Iraq, was approved by a Meeting for Business held on February 13, 2005. The late Kenneth Boulding stated, "Those who love their country in the light of their love for God express that love by endeavoring to make their country respected rather than feared, loved rather than hated. But those who love only their country express that love by trying to make their country feared and succeed too often in making it hated." The Tempe Friends Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends calls on the Congress to attach a resolution to the Iraq war spending bill that states that the policy of the United States is to "withdraw all military troops and bases from Iraq." We deplore the continued bloodshed that has taken the lives of thousands n Iraq. We hear that two thousand "enemy combatants" are arrested or killed each month, as if it makes no difference whether they are arrested or killed. In meantime, scores of innocent Iraqis are bombed each month and too many of our own military service people are maimed and killed. Continued violence and the use of violence to combat it doesn’t heal, but creates the seeds of resentment that leads to more violence. Military force will not kill a movement based on martyrdom. Martyrdom arises from a desire to regain control amidst a feeling of vulnerability due to poverty, inadequate public services, and foreign occupation. As the Israelis and Palestinians hopefully take steps toward ending their mutual bloodshed, we call on the United States and new Iraqi governments to seek dialogue with those disaffected as well as those who rely on violence by working to overcome their sense of poverty and hopelessness to develop a road map to peace that might be embraced by all Iraqis.
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