Today, we recognize and strengthen local leadership that prioritizes community safety over federal deportation quotas. As of now, our sheriffs have chosen community trust over collaboration with ICE, a decision that keeps all residents safer and protects our neighbors from a program designed to terrorize immigrant families.

287(g) agreements turn local police into deportation agents, forcing them to interrogate people about immigration status during routine encounters. These programs destroy community trust, making immigrant survivors afraid to report crimes and witnesses afraid to come forward. Our sheriffs understood that public safety requires community trust, not fear.

Today's Action:

• Write a brief thank-you letter to both Grand Traverse County Sheriff Michael D. Shea and Leelanau County Sheriff Mike Borkovich

• Acknowledge their commitment to community-centered policing over federal immigration enforcement

• Mail or email your letters to their offices

• Share why this matters to you and your vision for inclusive community safety

Sample letter: "Dear Sheriff [Name], Thank you for refusing to sign a 287(g) agreement with ICE. By prioritizing community trust over deportation quotas, you've made our entire community safer. When all people in our community, regardless of immigration status, feel safe reporting crimes and serving as witnesses, we all benefit from stronger public safety. Your leadership in keeping local law enforcement focused on local safety rather than federal immigration enforcement shows true commitment to protecting all residents."

Learn more about 287(g): Visit americanimmigrationcouncil.org for detailed information about how these agreements harm communities.

Sheriff Shae Information
851 Woodmere Avenue
Traverse City, MI 49684
Phone: (231) 995-5000
Email: info@gtsheriff.org

Sheriff Borkovich Information
8525 E Government Center Dr
Suttons Bay, MI 49682
Phone: 231-256-8800
http://www.leelanau.cc/sheriff.asp

Today, we confront our government's complicity in genocide by demanding our elected officials stop taking blood money from AIPAC and end U.S. support for Israeli war crimes. American tax dollars sent to Israel help fund the starvation, displacement, and murder of Palestinian families.

Our grief for the Palestinian people connects to our grief for all communities facing state violence, from ICE raids in our neighborhoods to police brutality in our streets. The same military contractors profiting from Palestinian suffering also militarize our local police departments.

Today's Action:

• Call Rep. Bergman and Senators Slotkin and Peters using the numbers provided

• Demand they refuse all AIPAC money and corporate PAC donations from weapons manufacturers

• Demand immediate end to the Gaza blockade allowing all humanitarian aid to enter

• Demand an end to illegal West Bank settlements and accountability for war crimes

Sample script: "I'm calling to demand you stop taking AIPAC money immediately. Your constituents will not accept representatives funded by organizations supporting genocide. We demand you vote to end all military aid to Israel until they comply with international law, allow unrestricted humanitarian aid into Gaza, and end illegal settlement expansion. Palestinian liberation is connected to all our struggles for justice."

Contact info:

Rep. Bergman
Email: Bergman.constituent@mail.house.gov
DC Phone: (202) 225-4735
Traverse City Phone: (231) 944-7633

Sen. Slotkin
Email: senator@slotkin.senate.gov
DC Phone: (202) 224-4822
Traverse City Phone: (231) 929-1031

Sen. Peters
Email: senator@peters.senate.gov
DC Phone: (202) 224-6221
Traverse City Phone: (231) 947-7773

Today, we prepare to protect our community by learning how to respond when ICE terrorizes our neighbors. This isn't charity, it's community self-defense against a system designed to separate families and criminalize people for seeking safety.

Every day, our immigrant neighbors live with the trauma of potential raids, deportations, and detention. Their grief is our grief. Their safety is our safety. When we build mutual aid networks, we create the infrastructure of care that our government refuses to provide.

Today’s Action:

• Sign up for NoMi Neighbor Network’s December 10th training here

• Block out time in your calendar to attend this crucial session

• Invite others who share your commitment to community protection

• Begin thinking about what skills and resources you can offer your neighbors

This training will teach you how to respond when ICE shows up in our community, how to know your rights and help others know theirs, and how to build sustainable networks of mutual support. Knowledge is power, and shared knowledge is collective power.

Our grief for families torn apart by deportation fuels our determination to create sanctuary in our own communities. We cannot rely on politicians or institutions to protect the most vulnerable, we must protect each other.

Sign up today: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSefiLwQiKFVbRseQ5rSqF2NueNh5hUWN6pFKSJSSdeOfLLikg/viewform

Today, we honor the truth that liberation happens through connection. In a society designed to isolate us and keep us from recognizing our shared grief, reaching out to build genuine relationships becomes an act of resistance against divide-and-conquer tactics.

Our movements are only as strong as the relationships that sustain them. This isn't networking, it's community building as revolutionary practice.

Today's Action:

• Call a neighbor, family member, or acquaintance you'd like to know better

• Set up a coffee meeting with the genuine intention of deepening your relationship

• Listen to their struggles and share your own. Find the connections between personal pain and systemic oppression

• Plant seeds for future conversations about justice without forcing an agenda

• Remember that every organizer started as someone's friend, family member, or neighbor

This conversation exists because you chose connection over isolation. It represents resistance against a system that profits from our disconnection and despair.

Your grief for fractured communities is connected to every person's grief for lost relationships, economic insecurity, and the loneliness that capitalism creates. By reaching out, you join a movement that understands relationships are the foundation of resilience.

Today, we honor water as medicine, our life-giver, and our sacred relative. Following the teachings of Grandmother Josephine Mandamin and the Mother Earth Water Walk tradition, we recognize that water ceremonies are not just environmental activism, they are acts of sovereignty and spiritual resistance against systems that treat water as commodity rather than sacred gift.

Today's Action:

• Go to a local body of water - Grand Traverse Bay, Boardman River, or any water near you

• Bring an offering if you have it

• Send a heartfelt message to the water - speak your gratitude, your concerns, your prayers for healing

• Listen to what the water teaches you about connection, flow, and resilience

• Acknowledge this practice comes from Anishinaabe teachings and commit to supporting Indigenous water protectors

• Learn more about the Mother Earth Water Walk tradition at https://www.motherearthwaterwalk.com/

This ceremony exists because Indigenous grandmothers like Josephine Mandamin walked over 10,000 miles around the Great Lakes to raise awareness about water protection. It represents resistance against corporate water theft and the poisoning of Indigenous communities.

Your grief for polluted waters is connected to Indigenous peoples' grief for mercury-poisoned rivers, communities under decades-long water advisories, and the ongoing commodification of our most sacred element. By honoring water, you join a movement that centers Indigenous knowledge and fights for water as a human right.

More information on Josephine Mandamin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Mandamin

Today, we honor the unbreakable spirit of Palestinian resistance and recognize that our grief for genocide connects us across all borders. When we witness the systematic destruction of Palestinian communities, we see the same colonial violence that has devastated Indigenous peoples everywhere, the same state terror that targets black and brown communities here at home.

This is about stopping our government's complicity in ethnic cleansing. Every bomb dropped, every family destroyed, every child killed, our tax dollars fund this horror while our communities lack housing, healthcare, and food security.

Today's Action:

• Join the weekly Palestine solidarity demonstration TODAY at 11:00 AM on Grandview Parkway

• Bring signs, bring your voice, bring your body to demand an end to U.S. military aid to Israel

• Connect with MidEast Just Peace organizers and learn about ongoing campaigns

• Understand this as anti-colonial solidarity - Palestinian liberation is connected to all liberation struggles

• Learn more about ending U.S. arms shipments at https://mideastjustpeace.net/end-us-aid-arms-shipments-to-israel/

This demonstration exists because Palestinian communities continue to resist despite decades of occupation, siege, and attempted erasure. It represents our refusal to be complicit in genocide funded by our government.

Your grief for Palestinian families is connected to every community's grief under state violence; from ICE raids to police brutality to environmental racism. By standing in solidarity, you join a movement that understands liberation is collective and no one is free until everyone is free.

For more information visit: https://mideastjustpeace.net/

Today, we ask you to consider attending SALT's Nourish because revolutionary work requires revolutionary care. This gathering at New Waves Community House recognizes what the movement knows: we cannot pour from empty cups, and spiritual resilience becomes the foundation for sustained justice work.

The SALT Coalition has been building interfaith power in our region since 2020, organizing across spiritual traditions to defend democracy, protect voting rights, and stand with marginalized communities. Their Nourish gatherings create sacred space where activists can restore themselves while deepening their commitment to collective liberation.

Today's Action:

• Commit to attending Nourish on December 10 at 6pm at New Waves Community House (13856 S Justice Way, Traverse City)

• Connect with fellow spiritual organizers across faith traditions

• Participate in practices that ground you for continued justice work

• Learn about SALT's ongoing campaigns and how to plug into their organizing

This gathering matters because burnout serves oppression. When we tend our spirits collectively, when we create containers for processing grief and rage and hope together, we build the sustainability that long-term movements require.

Today, we honor the interconnected nature of our fights for justice. The Solidarity Organizing Initiative recognizes that our struggles against ICE detention, environmental racism, worker exploitation, and state violence are not separate battles, they are one fight against systems that profit from our oppression.

When we pledge solidarity, we commit to showing up for each other's liberation, understanding that our grief is shared and our power multiplied when we organize together.

Today's Action:

• Take the Solidarity Pledge at https://www.solidaritypledge.org/

• Commit to showing up for struggles beyond your immediate community

• Connect your local organizing to national and international movements

• Share the pledge with others in your networks who understand that justice is indivisible

• Join actions and campaigns supported by the Initiative's network of organizations

This pledge exists because movements succeed when they build coalitions across difference rather than competing for resources or attention. It represents resistance against divide-and-conquer tactics that keep us isolated and powerless.

Your grief for all forms of oppression is connected to every community fighting for dignity, safety, and self-determination. By taking this pledge, you join a movement that understands solidarity is a practice, not just a word, and that collective liberation requires collective action.

Today, we honor the fundamental truth that food is a human right, not a commodity. Grace Episcopal Church Food Pantry has served our community for decades, providing direct material support when government systems fail our neighbors. This isn't charity, it's community self-defense against a system that creates artificial scarcity while billionaires hoard wealth.

When benefit cuts leave families hungry, when wages can't cover rent AND groceries, when our neighbors face impossible choices between medicine and meals, we step up as community.

Today's Action:

• Donate to Grace Episcopal Church Food Pantry through Traverse Indivisible's fund drive

• Give at https://traverseindivisible.org or click here, where 100% goes directly to the pantry through December 16

• Share this opportunity with others who understand food justice

This fund drive exists because our community refuses to accept hunger as inevitable. It represents resistance against systems that prioritize profit over people's basic needs.

Your grief for families choosing between rent and groceries is connected to every community's struggle against manufactured scarcity and wealth hoarding. By contributing, you join a movement that builds material solidarity and understands that mutual aid keeps us all alive.

Today, we honor Nael Shamma and the countless families torn apart by ICE's reign of terror. Nael, a father and green card holder from Michigan, was detained by ICE despite decades of on-time check-ins, a reminder that no one is safe from this system of state violence designed to terrorize all immigrant communities.

When we read these stories, we bear witness to the deliberate cruelty of a system that separates children from parents, that treats human beings as criminals for seeking safety, that profits from caging our neighbors.

Today's Action:

• Read Nael Shamma's story at https://www.newsweek.com/ice-detains-father-green-card-michigan-2124475

• Sit with the reality that this happened to a Michigan family, in our state. To a grandfather.

• Research other detention stories - there are hundreds like Nael's across the country

• Share what you learn with others who need to understand ICE's impact

• Connect this to the vigil these actions are building toward at North Lake ICE Detention Facility on January 6

This story exists because ICE operates with impunity to destroy families while communities like ours often remain unaware of the terror happening in our name. It represents the human cost of immigration enforcement that treats people as disposable.

Your grief for Nael's family is connected to every family facing state-sanctioned separation and violence. By bearing witness, you join a movement that refuses to let these stories remain hidden and demands abolition of systems that cage our neighbors.

Today, we ask you to join Equality Michigan's phone banks because democracy dies in silence, and LGBTQ+ liberation requires us to reach every corner of this state with our message of justice. These organizing conversations build the voter base we need to defeat anti-trans legislation, protect reproductive freedom, and advance policies that center marginalized communities.

Equality Michigan has been fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in our state for decades, understanding that true equality requires political power. Their weekly phone banks identify and mobilize Equality Voters, people who share our commitment to fairness, inclusion, and justice for all. With midterm elections approaching and attacks on LGBTQ+ communities escalating nationwide, every conversation becomes an act of resistance.

Today's Action:

• Visit EqualityMI.org to learn more about their mission

• Email Abby at acherry@equalitymi.org to sign up for phone bank training

• Commit to flexible scheduling - call work can be done from home

• One-on-one training is available, so no experience is necessary

• Connect with voters across Michigan who care about LGBTQ+ equality

This work matters because every vote we turn out strengthens our collective power to protect vulnerable communities. When you make these calls, you're not just gathering data, you're building relationships with people who share your values but may not know how to channel their concern into political action.

Your grief for LGBTQ+ people facing legislative attacks connects you to every family worried about their trans child's safety, every couple fighting for marriage equality, every person whose basic dignity depends on electoral outcomes. When we organize conversations that move people from concern to action, we transform individual anxiety into collective power.

Today, we honor the collective power that emerges when communities organize against authoritarianism. Traverse Indivisible brings together neighbors who understand that defending democracy requires sustained local action, not just voting every few years. This is about building grassroots resistance to protect our communities from fascist attacks on voting rights, immigrant safety, and basic human dignity.

When democracy is under assault, when marginalized communities face escalating threats, we organize as community defenders, not as passive observers hoping someone else will save us.

Today's Action:

• Sign up for Traverse Indivisible's monthly meeting on December 16

• Register at https://www.mobilize.us/traverseindivisible/event/872069/ or learn more at https://www.traverseindivisible.org/events/monthly-meeting-december

• Connect with other community members building local resistance

• Learn about current campaigns and how to plug into ongoing organizing efforts

• Understand this as community self-defense, protecting democracy through collective action

This meeting exists because democracy dies without organized communities willing to defend it at the grassroots level. It represents resistance against authoritarianism through sustained local organizing and mutual support.

Your grief for attacks on democracy is connected to every community's struggle against voter suppression, gerrymandering, and fascist organizing. By joining, you become part of a movement that understands democracy is a practice, not a given, and requires active community participation to survive.

Today, we send money to help families torn apart by immigration detention, because mutual aid defeats the isolation that ICE depends on. When our government cages people at North Lake Detention Facility in Baldwin, they're not just imprisoning individuals, they're weaponizing poverty against entire families, forcing loved ones to choose between basic survival and supporting their detained family members.

The No Detention Centers MI prisoner support fund connects resources directly to families navigating this system of deliberate cruelty. Every dollar you contribute helps cover phone calls, commissary funds, legal fees, and basic necessities for families whose breadwinners have been disappeared into detention.

Today's Action:

• Visit nodetentioncentersmi.org/north-lake-prisoner-support/ to contribute funds

• Give what you can - even small amounts aggregate into meaningful support

• Share this resource with others who want to practice concrete solidarity

• Learn about the detention system through the experiences of impacted families

• Consider monthly recurring donations to provide sustained support

This matters because ICE detention is designed to break families through financial devastation. When breadwinners disappear into detention, families face impossible choices: pay rent or fund phone calls, buy groceries or hire lawyers. Your contribution becomes community defense against this systematic assault on immigrant families.

Your grief for families separated by detention connects you to every parent who's missed their child's birthday from behind bars, every partner working multiple jobs to cover legal fees, every family member who's had to choose between their own survival and supporting their detained loved one.

Today, we honor the power of community gathering as resistance practice. MidEast Just Peace's Holiday Peace Craft Fair creates space for solidarity and celebration while raising funds for Palestinian liberation work. This isn't just shopping, it's economic organizing that channels our resources toward justice movements.

When we gather to support each other's creativity while funding anti-colonial struggle, we build the cultural infrastructure that sustains long-term resistance movements.

Today's Action:

• Attend MEJP's Holiday Peace Craft Fair on December 14 at Presbyterian Church of TC

• Support local artisans while funding Palestinian solidarity work

• Bid on auction items that directly support MidEast Just Peace organizing

• Connect with other community members committed to international solidarity

• Learn more and get details at https://mideastjustpeace.net/holiday-peace-craft-fair/

This craft fair exists because movements need sustainable funding and communities need spaces to gather in solidarity. It represents resistance against isolation and the building of economic power for liberation struggles.

Your grief for Palestinian communities is connected to every struggle for self-determination and freedom from colonial violence. By attending, you join a movement that understands community celebration and political action strengthen each other, and that our joy is also resistance.

Today, we honor the difficult work of building bridges without abandoning our values. Braver Angels' One-on-One conversations offer structured space to understand how people arrive at different political conclusions while maintaining our commitment to justice. This isn't about compromising your principles, it's about strategic engagement that helps us all organize more effectively.

When we understand the experiences that shape opposing viewpoints, we become better at countering harmful narratives and finding unexpected allies for specific struggles like worker rights or anti-corruption efforts.

Today's Action:

• Schedule a One-on-One conversation through Braver Angels at https://braverangels.org/online/1-1-conversations/

• Approach with curiosity about how someone's experiences led to their beliefs

• Share your own story about what drives your commitment to justice

• Look for unexpected common ground on issues like economic fairness or government accountability

• Practice skills you can use in future organizing conversations with neighbors and family

This conversation exists because movements grow when we can communicate across difference and understand the fears and hopes that drive political choices. It represents strategic relationship-building that expands our capacity to organize.

Your grief for political polarization is connected to every community's need for dialogue skills that build power rather than just venting frustration. By engaging, you join a movement that understands listening is an organizing tool and that building bridges strengthens resistance.

Today, we listen to Indigenous and BIPOC voices, because these leaders carry wisdom essential for building genuine liberation movements. Their perspectives challenge white-centered activism and offer frameworks for justice that connect spiritual healing to systemic transformation.

These podcast episodes center Indigenous leadership and healing-centered organizing approaches that understand how personal transformation and collective liberation interweave. Listening to these voices means learning from communities who've been resisting oppression for generations.

Today's Action:

• Choose one episode from these recommended options and listen actively

• Be the Bridge: Terry Wildman - Learn how Indigenous Christians reclaim spiritual traditions within their own cultural contexts https://bethebridge.com/ep-278-terry-wildman/

• Unlocking Us: Shawn Ginwright - Explore how healing ourselves becomes essential to healing the world through four transformative pivots https://brenebrown.com/podcast/the-four-pivots-reimagining-justice-reimagining-ourselves/

• Eminazhichiget: Mark Wilson - Hear from Traverse City's Mayor Pro Tem about Anishinaabe values shaping local politics and community care https://titletrackmichigan.org/episode-2-of-eminazhichiget/

• Take notes on insights that challenge your assumptions about justice work

• Share key learnings with other people in your life

This matters because white-dominated movements often replicate the same hierarchies and harm patterns they claim to oppose. When we center Indigenous wisdom about interconnection, when we learn from Black leaders about healing-centered organizing, we build movements capable of creating the world we're fighting for.

Sustainable justice requires spiritual grounding, cultural rootedness, and community care practices that Indigenous and BIPOC communities have preserved through centuries of resistance.

For today’s action, we gather as people seeking tools for revolutionary compassion. This isn't about finding individual peace while the world burns, it's about understanding how collective healing becomes the foundation for sustained resistance.

The Dalai Lama's teachings in “Wisdom of Happiness” speak directly to our moment: how do we maintain hope and build solidarity when facing environmental collapse, state violence, and systemic oppression? His words about compassion aren't abstract philosophy, they're empowering strategies for communities under attack.

Today's Action: Watch "Wisdom of Happiness" at the State Theatre

• Purchase tickets and attend this Oryana and SALT-sponsored screening

• Listen for teachings that connect personal healing to collective liberation

• Reflect on how grief can fuel sustained action rather than despair

• Consider how compassion becomes a tool for community defense

• Connect with fellow attendees who share your commitment to justice

This screening matters because wisdom traditions from colonized peoples offer frameworks for resistance that Western activism often lacks. The Dalai Lama speaks from the experience of exile and cultural destruction, his teachings emerge from a people fighting for survival against an occupying empire.

Your grief for our fractured democracy connects you to Tibetan grief for their stolen homeland, to Indigenous grief for ongoing colonization, to immigrant grief for families torn apart by detention and deportation. When we learn from leaders who've maintained hope through decades of oppression, we strengthen our capacity for the struggles ahead.

Today, we encounter the work of Jamie John because Indigenous artists carry forward traditions of resistance that colonization tried to erase. John's art doesn't exist for settler consumption, it emerges from Anishinaabe worldviews that center reciprocity, connection to land, and the ongoing presence of Indigenous peoples in spaces claimed by colonial society.

Jamie John creates from lived experience as an Indigenous person navigating contemporary life while maintaining ancestral connections. Their artistic practice becomes a form of cultural sovereignty, asserting Indigenous presence and perspective in art spaces that have historically excluded Native voices or reduced them to stereotypes and museum artifacts.

Today's Action:

• Visit jamierjohn.com to learn about their background and artistic approach

• Spend time with their work - don't rush through but sit with the pieces that speak to you

• Read their artist statement to understand the intentions behind the work

• Consider how their art challenges dominant narratives about Indigenous peoples

• Reflect on what you don't understand and sit with that rather than seeking quick explanations

• Share their work with others

This matters because Indigenous artists like Jamie John are reclaiming narrative power, creating work that speaks to their communities first while educating settlers about realities they’ve been taught to ignore. When we engage seriously with Indigenous art, we challenge the colonial gaze that has objectified Native cultures for centuries.

Your grief for ongoing cultural erasure connects you to every Indigenous artist fighting to maintain traditions while creating new forms of expression, every person whose cultural practices have been criminalized or commodified, every community working to pass on knowledge that colonization tried to destroy.

Today, we donate toys to children whose families face economic violence disguised as market forces. Toys for Tots in Traverse City connects resources directly to families struggling under systems designed to concentrate wealth while leaving working people behind. This mutual aid recognizes that childhood joy becomes an act of resistance against poverty manufactured by corporate greed.

When capitalism forces parents to choose between rent and presents, when benefit cuts leave families unable to afford what brings children happiness, community response fills gaps that government abandons. Every toy donated challenges the lie that scarcity is natural rather than engineered by policies that prioritize profit over people.

Today's Action:

• Visit traverse-city-mi.toysfortots.org to find donation locations and toy guidelines

• Purchase new, unwrapped toys appropriate for children of all ages

• Focus on items often overlooked - gifts for teenagers, books, art supplies, games for older kids

• Drop off donations at participating local businesses and collection sites

• Consider the children who will receive these gifts and the families who need this support

This matters because every child deserves joy regardless of their family's economic circumstances. When we contribute toys, we're not performing charity, we're practicing economic justice that recognizes how systemic inequality impacts the youngest members of our community.

Your grief for children growing up in poverty connects you to every parent working multiple jobs who still can't afford holiday gifts, every child who's learned to expect disappointment, every family navigating the shame that capitalism attaches to economic struggle. Through this action, we affirm that children's happiness matters more than market logic.

Today, we honor every disabled student's right to education and dignity. Proposed cuts to special education protections represent another attack on our most vulnerable community members; part of the same system that abandons families facing food insecurity, criminalizes immigrants, and prioritizes profit over people's basic needs.

When we defend special education, we defend the principle that every person deserves support to thrive, not just survive. This is disability justice as collective liberation.

Today's Action:

• Take action against special education cuts at https://action.thearc.org/r8FCyAU

• Your story can make a difference - Answer a few short questions on why you think public education is essential, especially for students with disabilities.

• Share this action with parents, educators, and community members

These cuts exist because our society devalues disabled lives and treats education as a commodity rather than a human right. They represent systemic ableism that intersects with racism, classism, and all forms of oppression.

Your grief for disabled students facing reduced support is connected to every family's struggle against systems that abandon rather than care for us. By taking action, you join a movement that centers disability justice and understands that none of us are free until all of us can access what we need to thrive.

Learn more about the Arc of the United States and their mission at https://thearc.org/about-us/

Today, we honor every person caged at North Lake Detention Center and demand our elected officials witness the conditions where our neighbors are imprisoned. Congressional oversight visits force transparency into a system designed to operate in shadows, hiding the human cost of detention and deportation from public view.

When senators visit detention centers, they can no longer claim ignorance about the deliberate cruelty happening in our state. This is about breaking the silence that allows ICE terror to continue unchallenged.

Today's Action:

• Call Senator Gary Peters at (202) 224-6221

• Call Senator Elissa Slotkin at (202) 224-4822

• Demand they conduct an oversight visit to North Lake ICE Detention Center in Baldwin, Michigan

• Ask them to investigate conditions and advocate for detained individuals

• Mention specific concerns about medical care, family separation, and treatment of detainees

• Follow up with their local offices if needed

These calls are needed because detention centers operate with impunity when elected officials refuse to witness what happens inside. They represent our demand for transparency and accountability from systems that cage our neighbors.

Today, we honor the power of public testimony to transform individual pain into collective action. When we write letters to the editor connecting our personal grief to political failures, we break the silence that keeps suffering isolated and invisible. This isn't just venting; it's strategic communication that helps our community understand how policy violence creates the losses we're grieving.

Your letter becomes evidence of harm that elected officials can no longer ignore, and invitation to others who share your grief but haven't yet connected it to systemic causes.

Today's Action:

• Write a letter to the Record Eagle connecting your grief to political actions at https://www.record-eagle.com/site/forms/online_services/letter/

• Be specific about which policies or official actions have deepened community suffering

• Connect personal impact to broader patterns of harm (detention, benefit cuts, environmental destruction)

• Call for concrete changes rather than just expressing frustration

• Share your letter with friends or post on social media to amplify your message

• Encourage others to write their own letters about their grief

Your grief for policy failures is connected to every community member's struggle against systems that prioritize profit over people's lives. By writing publicly, you join a movement that transforms private pain into public pressure for justice.

Today, we honor businesses that risk backlash to take moral stands against genocide and occupation. When local establishments use their platforms to support Palestinian liberation, they demonstrate that business can be a tool for justice, not just profit. This isn't about consumer activism alone, it's about building economic solidarity with movements for freedom.

Supporting these businesses strengthens the infrastructure of resistance in our community while showing other business owners that taking principled stands has community backing.

Today's Action:

• Seek out businesses that have publicly supported Palestinian liberation or called for ceasefire

• Thank them directly for taking a moral stand despite potential backlash

• Shop there intentionally and bring friends who share your values

• Share their courage on social media to amplify their message

• Note: Potter's Bakery in Traverse City closed for "Shut it Down for Palestine" in November 2023—research if they're still operating and supportive

• Ask other business owners where they stand and encourage them to speak out

These businesses exist because some owners refuse to stay silent while genocide unfolds aided by U.S. funding and support. They represent courage over profit and the understanding that neutrality serves oppression.

Your grief for Palestinian communities is connected to every struggle against systems that prioritize profit over human life. By supporting principled businesses, you join a movement that builds economic power for liberation and shows that our dollars can be weapons for justice.

Today, we acknowledge that grief is not meant to be carried alone. In a society that tells us to move on quickly or suffer in silence, the people who sit with us in our pain are doing sacred, revolutionary work. Collective grief-holding builds the emotional foundation for all justice movements, whether we're mourning personal losses, systemic violence, environmental destruction, or the ongoing theft of Indigenous lands.

Today's Action:

• Write a letter, text, or email to someone who has helped you process grief, whether from personal loss, political trauma, witnessing injustice, or community violence

• Be specific about how their presence mattered during your hardest moments

• Acknowledge that their emotional labor sustains community resilience

• Consider how grief-holding connects us across different struggles, from ICE detention deaths to LGBTQAI+ safety threats to food insecurity

• Send it today, don't wait for the "perfect" words

Resources for grief processing:

• What's Your Grief: whatsyourgrief.com (practical tools for navigating loss)

• Grief Recovery Method: griefrecoverymethod.com (structured approach to processing grief)

• Center for Loss & Life Transition: centerforloss.com (resources connecting grief to meaning-making)

This isn't just personal healing, it's movement building. When we honor those who hold space for our grief, we strengthen the bonds that sustain long-term resistance against white supremacy, colonization, and all systems of oppression. Your gratitude connects you to communities that refuse isolation and choose collective care.

When we thank our grief-witnesses, we build the emotional infrastructure of liberation.

Today, while many celebrate Christmas, we recognize that holidays can amplify both joy and grief. For families separated by deportation, those experiencing their first holiday after loss, or communities facing violence and displacement, this day carries profound weight. Your presence at whatever table you find yourself at can be an act of resistance against the isolation and disconnection that feeds injustice.

Today's Action:

• Create space for those who are struggling during family meals or gatherings, ask and listen deeply

• Share a moment of acknowledgment for those who can't be at your table, families separated by detention, those we've lost, communities under attack

• Practice the same presence you'd want if you were grieving during a celebration

• Notice who might be isolated in your gathering and offer genuine connection

• If you're alone today, reach out to one person who might also need connection

This isn't about changing anyone's politics at the dinner table, it's about practicing the radical care that sustains movements for justice. Your grief connects you to the determination of those fighting for justice. Your presence with those who are hurting builds the emotional bonds that make collective action possible.

When we show up with full hearts, even in small moments, we practice the world we're building, one where no one grieves alone.

Tomorrow we continue carrying each other forward.

Today, we prepare to bear witness at the North Lake ICE Detention Facility, where the GEO Group profits from human suffering while families are torn apart by design. This for-profit prison in Baldwin, Michigan represents the largest ICE detention operation in the Midwest; a monument to how capitalism transforms human beings into commodities and grief into revenue.

The detention center exists because detention is profitable. Every person held behind those walls generates income for shareholders while communities lose fathers, mothers, siblings, and friends. Our grief for separated families connects us to the broader violence of a system that criminalizes migration while extracting wealth from human desperation.

Today's Action:

• Sign up for the Baldwin Vigil at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfXyhBPUDkbuKTZqC9b55DkFMCa9a7LJO0J7AOoreqxH02YcQ/viewform?usp=dialog

• Learn more about the facility and its impact here or at https://www.aclumich.org/en/press-releases/aclu-opposes-opening-north-lake-correctional-facility-largest-immigrant-detention

• Share the vigil information with your networks - collective witness amplifies resistance

• Reflect on how detention centers function as tools of social control and capital accumulation

• Consider how your grief for this injustice connects you to detained individuals and their families

This vigil, organized by NoMI Neighbor Network & The SALT Coalition, is an act of community defense against a system that profits from punishment. When we gather outside the facility, we make the invisible visible and transform individual sorrow into collective power.

Today, we reclaim the erased stories of disability liberation that capitalism and ableism have tried to bury. The Disability History Social Project reveals how disabled people have always been at the forefront of resistance movements, challenging a system that deems bodies "productive" or "disposable" based on their economic value.

Our society's ableist foundations aren't accidents, they're deliberate structures that maintain power by deciding whose lives matter. When we learn how disabled activists fought for access, dignity, and survival, we understand that disability justice is economic justice. The same forces that warehouse people in institutions are the ones that extract profit from detention centers and deny healthcare as a human right.

Today's Action:

• Explore the Disability History Social Project at https://disabilityhistory.org/

• Read stories of disability resistance that textbooks omit

• Connect disability oppression to other systems of control and exploitation

• Reflect on how ableism shapes immigration policy, policing, and economic exclusion

• Consider how your grief for ableist violence connects you to disabled communities fighting for liberation

This action is about recognizing disabled people as leaders in movements for collective liberation. When we understand disability history, we see how capitalism requires the myth of the "perfect worker" to justify abandoning those it cannot exploit.

Today, we step outside the colonial framework that treats land as property and sunrise as commodity, learning instead from Anishinaabe teachings about sacred relationships. Many of us are uninvited guests on Turtle Island (North America), and as such we have the responsibility to listen humbly to Indigenous wisdom about how to exist in the right relationship with creation.

The Turtle Island creation stories teach us that we are not separate from the land, water, and sky; we are in relationship with them. This understanding directly challenges the capitalist worldview that reduces everything to resources for extraction. When we learn how Anishinaabe peoples understand the Sun as Grandfather, a relative and creator, we begin to see how Indigenous sovereignty offers pathways beyond colonial destruction.

Today's Action:

• Take your family outside at sunrise and practice respectful witness

• Watch the Anishinaabe Turtle Island creation teachings at:

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYw61yujOSU

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuIOTriZIys

• Reflect on what it means to be in relationship rather than ownership with the land

• Consider how Indigenous teachings challenge the systems causing our collective grief

• Support Indigenous-led movements for Land Back and water protection

This isn't about adopting Indigenous practices; it's about learning from Indigenous wisdom as we work to dismantle the colonial systems that harm us all. Our grief for environmental destruction connects us to Indigenous communities who have never stopped defending the sacred.

Today, we confront the violence of a system that creates homelessness and hunger while billionaires hoard wealth. Food insecurity and housing displacement aren't accidents, they're tools of the billionaire class designed to keep working people desperate and compliant. When our neighbors lack shelter and sustenance, it's because resources are being extracted upward to line corporate pockets.

Today's Action:

• Visit gtsafeharbor.org and sign up through their volunteer center at https://www.gtsafeharbor.org/volunteer/volunteer-center.html

• Choose shifts that build ongoing relationships, not one-time charity visits

• Listen to the stories and wisdom of unhoused community members, they are experts on survival under capitalism

• Recognize that mutual aid is community self-defense against a system that abandons the most vulnerable

• Connect with other volunteers organizing for housing justice and economic democracy

This isn't charity, it's community self-defense. Every meal served and bed provided is an act of resistance against an economy that prioritizes profit over people. Your grief for those sleeping outside in Michigan winters connects you to the grief of families choosing between rent and groceries, between medication and heat.

When we feed our neighbors, we organize our resistance to a system that creates artificial scarcity while abundance exists. We build the caring community that unregulated capitalism tries to destroy.

Today, we transform individual witness into collective power by personally inviting someone to join us at the North Lake ICE Detention Facility vigil. The GEO Group's profit machine depends on our isolation. When we build community connections around resistance, we threaten their business model of invisible suffering.

Collective action transforms our grief into organized resistance. The detention industry fears nothing more than communities that refuse to let their violence happen in the shadows. When we invite others to witness alongside us, we create the solidarity networks that sustain long-term struggle against systems of oppression.

Today's Action:

• Personally invite someone you know to join you at the Baldwin vigil on January 6th, 2026

• Share the invite link to the vigil https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfXyhBPUDkbuKTZqC9b55DkFMCa9a7LJO0J7AOoreqxH02YcQ/viewform?usp=dialog

• Offer to carpool together - shared transportation builds relationships and removes barriers

• Reach out to someone new in your circles who might connect with this action

• Share why this matters to you personally - authentic invitation creates deeper commitment

• Consider how collective witness strengthens both you and the people detained inside

This isn't about recruiting; it's about building the community defense networks we need to challenge detention for profit. When we invite others into resistance, we acknowledge that liberation requires all of us working together, not individual acts of conscience.

For more information on the January 6 Vigil, presented by NoMi Neighbor Network visit [placeholder link]

Today, we confront the obscene reality that Americans throws away 60 million pounds of food annually while our neighbors go hungry. Corporations, and our government, would rather destroy surplus food than give it away because hunger is profitable. Desperate people work for less, accept worse conditions, and don't organize for their rights.

Today's Action:

• Visit foodrescue.us/rescue-food/#rescuer and register as a food rescuer

• Get additional information at goodwillnmi.org/food-1 about local coordination

• Consider committing to regular pickup shifts that build relationships with local businesses

• Pay special attention the scale of waste you witness, this is evidence of systemic failure

Take direct action against corporate waste. Every rescued meal is food stolen back from dumpsters and redirected to our communities. Your grief for families rationing groceries connects you to the rage of watching perfectly good food destroyed to maintain artificial scarcity.

When we rescue food, we expose the lie of scarcity that keeps working people fighting each other instead of the system exploiting us all. We build food sovereignty from the ground up, community by community.

Today, we recognize that every dollar is a vote for the world we want to build. BIPOC and LGBTQAI+ entrepreneurs face systemic barriers, from discriminatory lending to hostile business environments, while corporate chains extract wealth from our communities. Supporting community-owned businesses is economic resistance that keeps resources circulating locally and builds power outside white supremacist structures.

Today's Action:

• Eat at Bushell's Kitchen and Cocktails or Taqueria Las Lagunas and savor food made by community members building their own economic freedom

• Order nail polish from Northern Nail Polish at northernailpolish.com and support women's entrepreneurship while contributing to reforestation efforts

• Explore Rufus Snoddy's art at rufussnoddy.com and invest in Black artistic expression that challenges dominant narratives

• Share these businesses with friends, family, and social networks

• Ask these business owners what community support looks like beyond individual purchases

When we choose community-owned businesses over corporate chains, we starve the extractive economy that concentrates wealth upward. Your grief for communities pushed out by gentrification connects you to the determination of entrepreneurs building alternatives to corporate dominance.

When we support community businesses, we build community wealth that can't be extracted by distant shareholders. We create economic democracy one transaction at a time.

Bushell’s Kitchen - https://bushellskitchenandcocktails.com/
Taqueria Las Lagunas - https://laslagunastc.com/

Today, we break through the propaganda machine that sanitizes genocide and centers settler colonial narratives over Palestinian lived experience. When we follow Palestinian journalists directly, we bypass the corporate media filter that transforms mass murder into "conflict" and ethnic cleansing into "war."

The corporate media's complicity in genocide becomes clear when we compare their sanitized coverage to the raw truth documented by Palestinian journalists risking their lives to report. These voices don't just provide information, they preserve testimony of ongoing crimes and resist the erasure that enables continued violence.

Today's Action:

• Follow credible Palestinian journalists for honest Gaza reporting

• Recommended: Plestia Alaqad (@plestia.alaqad on Instagram) - Award-winning journalist whose viral video dispatches during the early bombardment captured global attention. Now has 4 million followers and recently published "The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience"

• Share their content to amplify Palestinian voices over corporate propaganda

• Reflect on how direct Palestinian testimony challenges mainstream narratives

• Consider the courage it takes to document genocide while living through it

This isn't about consuming tragedy—it's about centering Palestinian voices in conversations about Palestinian liberation. When we follow these journalists, we participate in collective witness that makes genocide harder to ignore or deny.

Today, we transform our phones into tools of democratic pressure. When ICE raids tear families apart, when benefit cuts leave neighbors hungry, when anti-trans legislation threatens our community members, we need immediate access to the people who claim to represent us.

Your grief for democracy under attack becomes actionable power when you can reach your representatives in moments, not after fumbling through websites. Every contact saved is preparation for the sustained response our movement requires.

Today's Action: Program your representatives into your phone contacts

• Senator Gary Peters - DC: (202) 224-6221, Traverse City: (231) 947-7773

• Senator Elissa Slotkin - DC: (202) 224-3293, Traverse City: (231) 929-1031

• Rep. Jack Bergman - DC: (202) 225-4735, Traverse City: (231) 944-7633

• Add your state legislators - find them at legislature.mi.gov using your address

• Download the 5calls.org app for convenient calling scripts on current issues that matter to you

This preparation matters because collective pressure works. When we flood congressional offices with coordinated calls, when we make it impossible for representatives to ignore constituent demands, we shift the political landscape. Your saved contacts become weapons against voter suppression, immigrant detention, and corporate capture of our democracy.

Your grief for communities under siege connects you to every person who's ever had to call their representative begging for their family's safety, their healthcare, their basic dignity. It may seem simple, but saving these numbers to your phone connects you to a network of resistance that refuses to let elected officials govern without accountability.

Today, we examine why speaking out matters when fascism advances through silence and complicity. Mark Wilson's piece challenges us to move beyond the comfort of private disagreement into the public courage that resistance requires.

Silence is collaboration with systems of oppression. When we stay quiet about genocide, detention centers, or any injustice because it feels safer or more polite, we become complicit in the violence. Wilson's analysis reminds us that speaking out isn't about individual heroism, it's about building the collective voice that makes change possible.

Today's Action:

• Read "Speaking Out: Does It Matter?" by Mark Wilson at https://traverseindivisible.substack.com/p/speaking-out

• Reflect on moments when you've chosen silence over speaking truth

• Consider the cost of that silence to affected communities

• Identify one issue where you can move from private concern to public action

• Connect your grief about injustice to the responsibility to break complicit silence

When we speak out, we give others permission to do the same, building the chorus of resistance that oppressive systems fear most.

Today, we remember that resistance includes joy and that laughter can be a revolutionary act against systems designed to crush our spirits. Comedian Tina Friml, who has cerebral palsy, reminds us that disabled voices bring essential perspectives to our movements, and that humor doesn't diminish our commitment to justice; it sustains us through the long fight ahead.

Joy is not frivolity when we're fighting fascism and ableism—it's survival strategy and community building. The same forces trying to destroy democracy also want disabled people invisible, institutionalized, or dead. When disabled comedians like Tina claim space and make us laugh, they resist the systems that would rather silence them entirely. Disabled joy is revolutionary because it refuses the false narrative that their lives are tragic burdens.

Today's Action:

• Watch Tina Friml's comedy at https://youtu.be/LbaK754C4Kk?si=fLBh7q71cTF4ycSQ

• Share laughter with friends and family who are also in the struggle

• Reflect on how disabled humor challenges ableist assumptions and builds community

• Consider how disabled voices strengthen all our movements for justice

This isn't about toxic positivity or ignoring real suffering, it's about nurturing the human connections that give our activism meaning. When we laugh together and invite others to join in, we create the beloved community that makes all our other work worthwhile.

Follow Tina Firml at https://www.instagram.com/tinafriml/

Today, we complete our 43 days of building resistance by standing in solidarity with those caged by ICE. The North Lake Detention Center in Baldwin represents the violence of a system that criminalizes migration, tears families apart, and profits from human suffering. Our presence at the gates today transforms individual grief into collective witness and reminds those inside that they are not forgotten.

Today's Action:

• Travel to North Lake Detention Center in Baldwin, MI for the vigil led by NoMi Neighbor Network and The SALT Coalition

• Bring your voice to songs of resistance and solidarity that carry over the walls

• Listen deeply during storytelling that connects our struggles across communities

• Hold space for the grief of families separated by detention and deportation

• Remember that your physical presence challenges the isolation that ICE uses as a weapon

This isn't symbolic, it's direct solidarity. Every person who attends this vigil disrupts the invisibility that allows detention to continue. Your grief for families torn apart by ICE connects you to the determination of detained people fighting for their freedom and the communities demanding their release.

When we gather, we declare that no one is disposable and that our movements will not abandon those the state tries to disappear. We transform 43 days of individual actions into collective power for liberation.

For More Information Visit https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfXyhBPUDkbuKTZqC9b55DkFMCa9a7LJO0J7AOoreqxH02YcQ/viewform?usp=dialog