Spring is Coming: Fork ICE February Retrospective

Wow, what a month! We finished the last of our 28 daily sales at midnight, and they raised a total of $7,055.26 to help Minnesotans deal with the federal occupation. Our final donation has been made to The Advocates for Human Rights, one of the Minnesota organizations that is helping defend the legal rights of immigrants, so many of whom have been illegally detained the past months. Federal courts have ruled against the government time and again, and are even threatening criminal contempt in an attempt to compel the government to follow the law and court rulings. It's not enough to win in court now; it's a continuing battle to enforce the court's decisions against a lawless executive branch. 

THANK YOU to everyone who made a purchase, and to everyone who made their own additional gifts! In that regard, I especially want to shout out to Liz Danforth, who contributed two illustrations to highlight our sales and offered the artwork for auction. The first piece resulted in a donation of $316.61 to the Wilson Foundation to support rent relief. The second piece had a bid deadline last night; I'm excited to learn how much more it raised for the cause! We'll add it to the tally when the number is final.

I promised an accounting for the month's fundraising, so here is a link to the Google Sheet where I tracked it all. You can see what we sold each day, how much money was raised, and where we sent it.

This is the first day of "meteorological spring," but the ice is still here in Minnesota -- literally, and also with reference to federal agents who are still up to no good. While our fundraising promotion has ended, the needs remain. The Stand With Minnesota directory is still filled with urgent needs. I also encourage you to look around and find who is doing the already doing the work or preparing for what might happen when your community ends up as a target for federal retribution.

-John Nephew
President & Co-owner, Atlas Games