Giving Marin residents help to shine positive light in world – Marin Independent Journal

It’s chilly exterior. The North Bay and most of America is experiencing a darkish winter. The frigid air isn’t an American phenomenon. On Christmas Day take into consideration the lads, ladies and notably the youngsters in Ukraine.

Tens of hundreds of thousands of peaceable persons are enduring an nearly insufferable chilly in bombed cities and villages with out electrical energy and warmth. Marinites, understandably preoccupied with our personal struggles, have allowed the plight of war-torn Ukraine to fade. We shouldn’t overlook the atrocities levied on a free and peaceable folks because of the barbarism of Russia’s President Vladmir Putin, a merciless megalomaniac with delusions of restoring a Russian empire

Let’s replicate on what concerned Individuals can do to help people in Ukraine, world wide and right here in Marin. Full disclosure, my spouse Joanne and I financially assist every of the referenced applications.

• Sausalitans Jerry and Laurel Morris Spolter spent a month this previous summer season on the Polish-Ukraine border as kitchen volunteers for World Central Kitchen. They met and labored with among the 3.9 million Ukrainian refugees, largely ladies and kids, who fled invading Russian forces making a humanitarian disaster.

Backing up good deeds with their wallets, the Spolters raised substantial cash for Central World Kitchen at well-attended Sausalito fundraisers.

The Spolters are dedicated to humanitarian native causes. The plight of residents in Marin Metropolis’s Golden Gate Village public housing neighborhood is one other of their passions.

• It’s tough for Marinites to grasp the struggling in Haiti. The causes embody monetary smash when after these enslaved revolted in 1804, they had been compelled by arms to pay reparations to their previous “masters” as compensation for “misplaced property.” Haitians had been tormented by corrupt leaders who by no means developed the civil establishments requisites for democracy and prosperity. In the present day, 39% of the residents are illiterate as a consequence of few working free public faculties. There’s additionally destiny: main earthquakes, Hurricane Matthew, and Tropical Storm Grace. An already dysfunctional Haitian authorities is now managed by gang-like warlords.

Born and raised in Haiti, San Rafael’s Jacqueline Oriscar Lee is striving to alleviate struggling in her homeland. Jackie, an MBA grad of Moraga’s St. Mary’s Faculty, is the chief of Marin-based Haiti on the Rise.

Alongside along with her husband Randall Lee and supporters, they completely vet every supported venture with trusted on-island mates, household and clergy to make sure the cash raised is distributed in a helpful method free from corruption.

• Shifting to India, Mill Valley’s Annette and Paul Venables, discovered of the plight of a minority group, the Santals. On account of a distinct identification and faith, the Santals are denied equal instructional funding by India’s Hindu-majority federal authorities.