LETTER

 

                                                                                                                                         

In 2024, Seeing for Ourselves continued its second effort, on behalf of the clients of New York’s Department of Probation (DOP), authoring articles published by the journals of both the US and UK community corrections industries. Meanwhile, the book In a Whole New Way: Undoing Mass Incarceration by a Path Untraveled, placed as a finalist in the Social Justice category of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, known as the Sundance of the publishing world. 

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We launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the climate effort. Although not reaching the crowdsourcing effort's goal, the campaign succeeded in coming to the attention of The Zain Jaffer Foundation, which would kindly fund the initiative to the tune of $7,500. This support enabled us to produce a four-minute trailer showcasing the pilot effort, which would go on to win several awards as the best short documentary. We then began actively applying for additional grants.

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The trailer in turn helped bring the effort to the attention of the Bay Area youth climate group Everyday Climate Champions, which recruited five local students for the formal enterprise. The recruitment effort put the Chicago area youth climate group It's Our Future on our radar, and they too signed up to participate.

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The balance sheet for the year showed $7,500 in income that was spent on the film trailer and other climate project expenses, along with Jonathan's personal funds. By this point, George was sadly ailing and could no longer effectively participate in the project.

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Meanwhile, Jonathan continued to contribute a a half person-year in voluntary labor.

 

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