The past two weeks have been filled with wonder and gratitude here at Presencia.

At the beginning of August, we were exhausted and our cash reserves were running low. From the news and in our neighborhood, we kept hearing about immigrants across the nation facing escalating violence. In our seventeen years of doing this work, we’ve been through some challenging seasons, but it was hard to see our way through this one. Still, we had hope in our community. We put out a call to let the kids in our neighborhood know that “I’ve Got Your Back” by making donations. One of our most generous donors gave a $20,000 matching gift, and we reached out to our friends and watched them respond. Last week, we surpassed our goal of $20,000! That means that, with the match, over $40,000 will be used to give love, care, and support to vulnerable immigrant youth in our neighborhood. On the heels of that generosity, our short film, Con Permiso, was selected to play at the Georgia Latino International Film Festival, so our filmmaking team got to celebrate and interact with a thriving community of storytellers from across the country and around the world. I spent some time reflecting this morning on how many people from so many different backgrounds, places, faiths, and social groups have come together to guide, sustain, and grow this work. We’re doing an important and beautiful thing together. Thank you for being part of it. Have a hope-filled weekend, Ian North Development Director