Dear Friends,
I’m writing this letter to invite you to participate in an event that’s very important to me, one that I feel sure you will also want to be a part of. I share a birthday week with my dear friend, Dr. Vincent Harding, scholar, teacher, human-rights activist and Chairperson of the Veterans of Hope Project in Denver, Colorado.
That’s the special event—our joint birthday week! In the past, we’ve sometimes shared a party (and you might have been present at one of those happy occasions), but this time I’m inviting you to participate in a very different and very important way.
This year July 25 will mark Vincent Harding’s 80th Birthday! And I’ve decided to use this wonderful occasion as an opportunity to ask his friends, and my friends—and everybody’s friends—to seize such a historic moment as the right time to make a significant financial contribution to the crucial, life-affirming work of The Veterans of Hope Project.
As you may know, Vincent and his magnificent late wife, Rosemarie (whose birthday was also that week on July 24th), founded the wonderful Project in 1997 on the campus of the Iliff School of Theology where he was a faculty member for nearly a quarter of a century. Founding the Project was a way for the Hardings to share with a new generation the spirit-grounded social justice, reconciling humanitarian work that had been at the heart of their life together. Ever since the 1960’s, when they were deeply immersed in the experience of the southern freedom movement with such marvelous persons as Martin and Coretta King, Ella Baker, the brave young organizers of SNCC and such unsung local heroes as Fannie Lou Hamer, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Victoria Gray Adams, the Hardings were deeply committed community builders, recognizing the great creative democratic gifts to be found among all kinds of people in our nation.
So that was why Vincent, Rosemarie and their daughter, Rachel (now Dr. Rachel), conceived the Project as an educational source for spirit-centered, intergenerational community building and compassionate leadership development. At the heart of their work is a series of professionally filmed interviews with over 70 national and international elder activists: including such pioneers as Grace Lee Boggs, Staughton and Alice Lynd, Charles Long, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Tom Feelings, Katherine Dunham, Imam Warith Deen Muhammad, Dolores Huerta, Vine Deloria, Corky Gonzales, Andrew Young, Dorothy Cotton, Bishop Samuel Ruiz, Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons and dozens of others. They’ve even begun interviewing such young “Veterans” as me!
Along those same lines, the Project is currently creating a “Network of Hope” with youth and elders who are committed to similar compassionate leadership development work in other parts of this country and in Brazil. We expect that the USA-based members of the “Network” will soon be collaborating with Michelle Alexander—author of The New Jim Crow—in the crucial task of challenging the system of mass incarceration that is damaging so many of our nation’s youth.
Now, with Rosemarie having gone on, other members of the family and many stalwart volunteers are trying to keep up with Vincent’s amazing 80 year-old-pace. All of this marvelous work is being done on a shoestring—and a great vision—with the dedicated, sacrificial involvement of a very small, mostly volunteer staff. (Vincent’s niece, Gloria Smith, is at the heart of the day-to-day operation.)
The Project is also focusing important attention on its work with young people, especially so-called “marginalized” young folks, encouraging them to know that they are not meant to live in the margins and helping them to prepare to move to the center of leadership in the 21st century. The VOHP continues to develop powerful social, educational and artistic settings where elders can engage in creative collaborations with the young people, called “Ambassadors of Hope.”
That is why I’m sending you this appeal, my friend. I love Vincent and I really believe in the work of the Project. The great activist and humanitarian, Grace Lee Boggs, often writes about now being the time to “grow our souls.” We simply can’t go forward in this country to become our best selves as individuals, as communities, as a national and a world without such bastions of hope as the Veterans of Hope Project to encourage and enlighten us.
So please take my birthday, and Vincent’s birthday as a great opportunity to make a great contribution. The Project is a 501c3 tax-exempt, non-profit organization. Therefore, you will be able to do good and also to receive a benefit at tax time.
In keeping with our birthday theme, let me encourage you to use some multiple of $80 as a giving guide: for example $160, $240, $400, $560 or $800 might be a good starting point! Whatever you give will be used to further the work of the Project. It will be deeply appreciated and acknowledged. Please make your check payable to Veterans of Hope Project and send it to 2201 S. University Blvd., Denver, CO 80210. Mark your gift $80 Celebration. Cards and notes can also be sent to Dr. Harding at this address. For more information and to donate online, please see “Donate” on the main page of the Project’s website: www.veteransofhope.org. You can also find the organization on Facebook. If you have questions, Executive Director, Gloria Smith at gsmith@iliff.edu/303-765-3198 will be your best source of help.
Meanwhile, send your check NOW. We Birthday Boys will be very grateful—and lots of other boys and girls and women and men, as well.
Peace!
Danny Glover