Human Rights in the Park

We are a coalition of residents of the City of Albany, working in partnership with Food Not Bombs. Our mission is to collect and distribute resources to provide some relief for our struggling and overlooked neighbors. We are organizing this campaign to illuminate and counteract the human suffering exacerbated by Capital Holiday Lights in the Park. This event reveals the dissonance between our Mayor’s stated priorities and the city’s fiscal choices. In response, we call our campaign Human Rights in the Park. We need your help in meeting the community’s urgent needs. 

Albany’s citizens need their City to stay on their side during this COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing economic crisis, which is especially devastating for communities historically denied their share of our country’s wealth. Events like Capital Holiday Lights in the Park highlight a troubling pattern and its consequences, in real time, wherein we continue to deny poor and marginalized people access to COMMON wealth (such as this public space) that has been built upon their underpaid labor.

Furthermore, Capital Holiday Lights in the Park, run by the Albany Police Athletic League and Mayor Kathy Sheehan, and sponsored in part by the Albany Police Department, increases police presence in Washington Park and makes the park unsafe, particularly for BIPOC, unhoused people and people of other marginalized identities to have access to the public park. These ties to law enforcement contribute to the systemic discrimination we, as a society, vow to eradicate generation after generation yet continue to see plaguing marginalized people not just in our city, but in every corner of the world. 

Here’s how we’re helping. From 11/27 to 12/20, we will be collecting cash aid and  supplies including: monetary donations via Gofundme, gift cards for food, COVID safety supplies, street ready food, hand warmers and warm clothing (in-person collection locations TBA). From 12/12 to 12/20, we will distribute supplies and funds from Washington Park and a variety of other central locations in the City of Albany (TBA).  We will work with Food Not Bombs and a collective of neighbors, community organizers and organizations in the City of Albany to ensure the most direct and effective delivery of support. We will accept and distribute donations for the duration of the campaign at the distribution site(s) and via our GoFundMe. Please follow our GoFundMe for updates on distribution sites and on the progress of our campaign. 

Here’s what YOU can do. We encourage our neighbors in the City of Albany, and other people concerned for the wellbeing of our most vulnerable neighbors this winter, to withhold monetary support from Capital Holiday Lights in the Park this year and instead support our collective efforts to feed and supply the neighborhood residents impacted every year by Lights in the Park, and devastated this year in particular by the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying economic fallout, including unprecedented food and housing insecurity.

With your in-kind and monetary support, we can alleviate some of the suffering in our community, which continues to be ignored by our elected officials and their misguided outreach efforts. Together we can demonstrate not just our community’s incontestable need for resources, but the grit, compassion and kindness that truly make the people of Albany #NYTough. Contact us through our gmail email address (HumanRightsInThePark) for more info. Let us know if you would like to help!

Sincerely, 

Jessmynda Dosch-Evangelista, Megan S. Grant, Grace Ross, Treven Santicola, Sophi Dreslinski, Joseph Martterer, Lauren Ennis, and Anastasia Rodgers