The Rosenberg Fund for Children now makes almost 150 grants annually, but since our priority is to be a consistent source of multi-year support for those we aid, for the last several years over 90% of our grants have been renewals. That means approximately 10 new families and youth join our beneficiary community each year. However, as I write this on a scorching summer day with our fall granting cycle still in front of us, we’ve already received 17 new requests for support in 2011. We are on track to set an all-time record for new applications in one year. I find this distressing for a number of reasons.
The first is financial. Demand for our support is surging, just as it has become more difficult to raise the funds these youngsters so desperately need. I never want to say no to a child of a targeted activist, but we must meet our renewal commitments before taking on new ones.
The second is personal. Every new request reveals the story of a suffering kid. The dramatic increase in new applications is stark evidence that a growing number of children are enduring the kind of nightmare my brother and I experienced when we were young. I know that circumstances vary widely, but I can’t help identifying with so many young people who sense, but can’t fully comprehend, that powerful forces are attacking their families and that danger is lurking near. RFC grants can help ease their pain, but we can’t realize our most profound wish that their parents had never been targeted to begin with.
The third is political. The wealthiest 1% of the nation is bleeding most of the rest of us dry to feed their power and greed. This, plus the stumbling economy, is fostering growing unrest and feeding a variety of destructive social forces. The corporate-controlled state is criminalizing dissent, destroying unions, dismantling public programs and impoverishing millions. People are fighting back, but militarized police brutalize them, zealous prosecutors label them terrorists and authoritarian judges eagerly lock them up and impose draconian sentences.
You may not hear about it in the mainstream media, but resistance is growing. As Bill Quigley, the former legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, reported based on material presented in The Nuclear Resister, arrests at protests are increasing each year. Over 2600 people have been arrested in the United States at demonstrations since Obama took office: 665 in 2009, 1290 in 2010 and 670 in the first five months of this year. If arrests continue at this rate they’ll top 1600 by the end of 2011.
Given these conditions it would be surprising if we did not face a surge of new applications. That means that we will have to fund additional therapy for traumatized children, more summer camps to give them a safe haven, and added visits to enable them to see imprisoned loved ones. It is a bleak scenario, but with the entire RFC community behind us, we will do our best to rise to the challenge. We’re here to aid targeted activist youth and the children of all parents who’ve been attacked for engaging in every pro-gressive struggle you can imagine. We’ve been doing this for over two decades and we are not going away. In fact, we’ve positioned ourselves to continue our support for another 20 years and beyond.