Grants from the Amherst-based Peace Development Fund totaling $10,000 will support five western Massachusetts groups that challenge injustice and create new community structures anchored in social justice.
The Peace Development Fund, a public foundation created in 1981, works to build the capacity of community-based organizations through grants, training and other resources as partners in human rights and social justice movements. According to a Peace Development Fund press release, the $10,000 comes from the organization’s Pioneer Valley Community Advised Fund.
Of the five grant awardees for 2022, three are based in Franklin County: Great Falls Books Through Bars, the Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network and the Nolumbeka Project. Each group will receive $2,000.
“It is vitally important to PDF to invest in organizations here in the valley who are pushing community-driven, lasting change,” Foundation Officer Emily Serafy-Cox said in a press release.
The Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network (TASSN), a local network of volunteers and organizers, was formed in early 2019 to help queer asylum seekers, particularly transgender women of color, get out of detention and build a supportive community in the Pioneer Valley. The volunteer group raises money for the numerous fees associated with the asylum process, finds sponsors to house asylum seekers and provides trauma-informed support. TASSN has helped women from countries such as Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, Haiti, Cuba and Jordan in escaping the impacts of systemic violence and transphobia in their countries.
In addition to helping women with immediate immigration problems, founder Alla Sonder said TASSN also helps their clients settle into life in America long-term, providing them with apartments, lawyers, health care, mental health care, community and life skills. Describing their group as the most comprehensive support to asylum seekers in the United States, Sonder noted they collaboratively develop their clients’ support timelines with them.
Sonder said the $2,000 grant will cover legal fees, as well as an administrative budget to support paying for Zoom and for interpreters.
Great Falls Books Through Bars distributes books, reading materials and resources to people who are incarcerated across the country. According to organizer Jessica Hesse, Books Through Bars plans to use its grant money to continue to pay rent for the various spaces where they have volunteer days and package books. The organization also plans to use the money to buy extra office supplies, as well as send hundreds of packages to prisoners, which usually costs $5 per package.
Hesse said that, while Books Through Bars believes the Peace Development Fund grant will keep the project active and viable, it’s “not (their) main source of funding.” Most of its money, she said, comes from community donations.
Every second Saturday of the month, Books Through Bars holds volunteer days, where people can come and read what books incarcerated people have requested. Hesse noted that much of the project’s energy has been spent trying to get through a large backlog of requests.
Lastly, the $2,000 grant awarded to the Nolumbeka Project, a local nonprofit Indigenous history and culture preservation organization, will support the Pocumtuck Homelands Festival, set for Aug. 6 and Aug. 7.
“This family-friendly, two-day celebration has been offered free to the public since 2014,” said Diane Dix of the Nolumbeka Project. “Events such as this are critical, especially in the Northeast, where tribal erasure began 400 years ago and our education was/is based on the cultural, racial and religious biases of the early settlers.”