January
Palestinian American Community Center
January Newsletter #SupportTheMission
2022
January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
If you like anything we are doing, please donate at paccusa.org/donate Every dollar helps keep us going!
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January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
Thank you to all our generous donors who made our end of the year fundraiser campaign for 2021 a true success! Together, we were able to collect $272,985 in pledges and donations. We are looking forward to a 2022 filled with many activities, programs, events and, most importantly, a step closer to seeing a Free Palestine!
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January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
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Winter Programs After a short three-week break for the New Year, we are thrilled to be bringing back our programs for our winter session. We are continuing where we left off with our Arabic, Dabka, English Conversation, Arabic Storytime, Science Club, Tatreez, and Homework Help. Thanks to our partnership with Islamic Relief, we are also able to continue offering our computer classes in the new year!
Not only did we bring back our previous programs with a commitment to keep improving and providing you with the best quality programs, but we also launched a new program! Through our partnership with the NJ State Bar Foundation, we are now offering a virtual and in-person citizenship class that has over 20 students currently enrolled. Through this class, we hope to help our community members prepare for the citizenship test and ensure their success. We also are delighted to announce that after a long pause due to COVID-19, our sports programs are back! Our basketball and soccer programs have over 35 participants.
January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
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Palestine Education Programs Holding Onto Palestinian Existence (HOPE)
We have revamped and standardized our HOPE program to be an eight-week virtual course for high school students that takes place weekly on Wednesdays. We have 32 students from across the country registered, all of whom have been actively participating in our discussions about Palestinian history, culture, and greater social justice issues.
Freedom is the Future Due to popular demand, we have expanded our Freedom is the Future course to eight-weeks and have started the class with 29 registrants who are 18 years and older. This is the most diverse group of participants we have to date, joining from various states nationwide. For the first time since offering this course, we also have two active international students tuning in! We are looking forward to an invigorating course that will once again lead up to our annual conference!
Advocacy and Community Engagement Team We are moving along strongly with our 2021-2022 cohort of 10 youth. This month, we focused on Palestine in the 20th Century, discussing current events taking place on the ground as we speak as well. We concluded our meeting by assigning each ACE member a workshop theme or topic focusing on various educational aspects relating to Palestine. All workshops will be developed over the next couple of months and ultimately be presented to our community!
January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
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Kitchen Renovation It is only a matter of time before we officially open our kitchen! The construction team has been working tirelessly throughout January to get us closer to having our commercial kitchen ready. We anticipate opening our doors next month.
Events
Palestine Monday This month, we focused our conversation on the effects of Israeli occupation and colonization on Palestine’s land and environment with Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, director of the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University. We had 15 people attend via Zoom and over 173 views on Facebook.
Women’s Brunch Our women’s brunch this month had a lively group of 20 attendees who enjoyed great food with great people while learning about mental health and furthering their computer skills! Special thank you to our presenters Ahlam Mohammed from SMILE and Ibtisam Ali from Compute IT Solutions.
January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
Sahar Aziz Book Talk We hosted Sahar Aziz, Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers University for her to share her new book, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom. We had a great, intimate discussion with 15 attendees, who were able to purchase signed copies of her book.
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January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
Marketing
Changing the narrative on Martin Luther King Junior This month we honored Martin Luther King Jr. by posting on our social media platforms about Dr. King’s true stance on Palestine. Throughout the years, the narrative on Dr. King has been twisted, claiming that he supports Israel and its occupation against the Palestinian people. As a strong Civil Rights activist revered for supporting equality and equity, it is imperative to say that such support extends to the Palestinian people in their fight against illegal occupation. We highlighted resources from Michelle Alexander’s article on MLK and linked an article from The Electronic Intifada on MLK.
Community Engagement
Paterson Community Care Doula Program Panel
Our very own Executive Director, Rania Mustafa, was a panelist in a discussion to kick off a new initiative called the Community of Caring: Paterson Doula Cooperative! This exciting new program will help improve access to doulas for Paterson residents and provide training to doula candidates. We highly recommend this new initiative to our community members so they can benefit from it.
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January 2022
Palestinian American Community Center
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Inaugural Cohort of its New Momentum Fund PACC is excited to announce that we were one of 10 recipients who were nominated for and received a grant for multi-year funding to sustain our work in employing innovative strategies to address root causes of structural racism in New Jersey.
Click here to read the full announcement
Redistricting Work Given the impact PACC had in ensuring our community was counted in the Census, we have been asked to continue this work and help in the current New Jersey redistricting process. We are part of a committee that is working on creating a racially equitable map of the legislative districts. With the help of various community partners, we have been advocating for more Arab representation in the mapping of our districts. On Wednesday, January 26, we helped 5 community members testify to the redistricting commission on the impact of our growing Arab American presence in New Jersey.
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January
Palestinian American Community Center
PACC_USA
2022