FUNDRAISING
Free the Hikers Jewelry Fundraiser – Sarah Taylor Designs
Aug 30th
Sarah Taylor started making necklaces for the Free the Hikers campaign almost 2 years ago. It was at a Free the HIkers fundraiser organized by Jackie Brock, the sister of a good friend of Josh Fattal’s, that Sarah Taylor first donated a necklace for the silent auction. Jackie’s Mom won the necklace and promptly mailed it to Laura Fattal. It seemed fitting that all three Moms should have a necklace so the Brock family ordered 2 more. When the 3 Moms went to Iran in May 2010 they each wore their necklace.
Knowing this, created an attachment for Sarah Taylor to the hikers’ situation and it all spiraled from there. Sarah now has a ‘Free the Hikers Fundraiser’ page on her website, it offers necklaces engraved with “Free the Hikers,” “Free All Three” and another with “Shane, Sarah and Josh.” With each new necklace the word is spreading. Sarah Taylor says she is looking forward to the day she will never have to make another necklace because they will be free. “But until then, I feel fortunate to be able to help.. every person placing an order is so grateful to be able to support Free the Hikers and to spread the word.”
To view sample necklaces and earrings, see http://www.sarahtaylordesigns.com/free_the_hikers_fundraiser
To order your own necklace, contact sarah@sarahtaylordesigns.com
HOST YOUR OWN DVD PARTY FOR @FREETHEHIKERS
Apr 2nd
You can help the campaign to release Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal by showing the documentary, “Free Shane and Josh: An Urgent Plea for Compassion” in your home, place of worship, or community. It is the most comprehensive account to date of who Josh, Shane and Sarah are, what happened to them on July 31st, 2009 when they were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the on-going tragedy, injustice and heartbreak which ensued for them, their families and everyone who loves them.
Order a DVD of “Free Shane and Josh: An Urgent Plea for Compassion” and a downloadable film poster now. Your support is much appreciated.
Each DVD is $19.99 plus S&H
This is what solidarity looks like! ~ Sarah Shourd
Jan 29th
Hey Friends and Supporters,
I’m writing to let you know that I will be saying a few words and performing a few songs that I wrote in prison at the Art Auction this Saturday. I’m an in L.A. right now working on the songs with three incredible musicians that dropped from the sky into my life soon after I got out of prison: Bobby Field, Nic Flynt and Jennifer Argenti. Shane and Josh asked me to try and use my songs to bring our experience out into the free world, this will be my first ‘live’ attempt!
The organizers have put in a ton of work into this really important Art Auction to FREE ALL THREE and so please show up with friends in tow! There will be something for everyone here: food, drinks, music, talking and ART! This event will honor the beauty and humanity of Josh and Shane in so many ways, with particular focus on Shane’s award-winning work as a photojournalist. Many incredible photographers have donated their work (as well as artists using other mediums) and all purchases over 100$ will be tax-deductible.
This is what solidarity looks like!
Your Friend In Hard Times and Better Times to Come,
2010 Holiday Studio Sale – Elkins Park, PA
Nov 14th
Support Free the Hikers at this Studio Sale. Help bring Josh and Shane home.
WHEN: Saturday, November 20th and Sunday, November 21st, 10am to 5pm
WHERE: Elkins Park, PA (and online purchases)
CONTACT: Joan Z. Horn horn1000@comcast.net for location details
HOW: All artists will donate 10% of their profits to Free the Hikers for in-person and online purchases. (For Andy Schloss’ Chef Salt products please include ‘Free the Hikers’ in the comment box for online purchases)
Joan Z. Horn – Jewelry joanzhorn.com
Andy Schloss – Chef Salt aschloss@comcast.net www.chefsalt.com
Jane Pitkow - Painted Frames
Peg Mulligan – Silks
Annie Zipser - Quilts/Animals
Dave Posmontier – Jazz daveposjazz@comcast.net
Support Art/Buy Local/Bring A Friend and help bring Josh and Shane home.
WIN A BOBCAT IN RAFFLE TO HELP FREE THE HIKERS!
Nov 8th
Shane’s father Al is raffling a Bobcat tractor to support the Free the Hikers campaign.
Description: 873G Bobcat, totally rebuilt (including engine), cab heat and air conditioning, new rims and tires, new bucket, and new turbo.
Tickets: $50 each
Drawing: Dec.4th (You don’t need to be present to win and you can win even if the hikers are free by then!)
How to enter: Send a check for $50 with your current address, made out to
Shakopee Eagles Club
220 West 2nd Ave
Shakopee, MN 55379
Don’t need a Bobcat? Even if you don’t think you could use a Bobcat, the selling price on a 873G Bobcat is around $16,000, so it will definitely be worth a $50 ticket if you win! Once your check has been received, they will mail you back a ticket stub. Please send your check with a current address so that we can assure that your stub makes it back to you. There is no limit to how many tickets you may buy so feel free to buy more than one!
For more information, see the official flyer.
LETTER FROM SARAH SHOURD TO SUPPORTERS
Oct 21st
Dear Friends & Supporters:
I came out of prison feeling frozen. I put up walls inside walls because if I stayed tender for 13 months in prison I would have exposed myself to too much pain; because there wasn’t enough beauty in a day to ward off the long, spiritual winter; because I needed them to stay sane.
More than anything I’m grateful to finally be sitting here writing about prison in the past tense.
Yet, for Shane and Josh, prison is still locked in the eternal present.
Sarah Shourd with her mother, Nora
I am one of the only people in the world that has their voices still fresh in mind. They were truly joyful to see me go free. Tightly grasping my hands in theirs they said “we believe in you, Sarah, no one is more ready and capable of jumping into the free world and fighting for us than you are.”
Free-life offers new challenges and very different obstacles than I faced in prison. I have reentered a world of fear and uncertainty…and also of great hope. Now I know first-hand what our families and all of you have been experiencing all along.
I learned patience and perseverance those long months and it’s those lessons more than anything that are serving me now.
The most important thing that I can offer you are the words of Shane and Josh. What they want to say to you, more than anything else, is “thank you.” Not even a message as basic as that has been able to fly from their lips, suspended by tender air currents and carried into your ears, for all these months.
“Thank you.”
Since the day I stepped off that plane into Muscat, Oman I’ve met with three presidents, numerous foreign ministers and ambassadors. Not one of them means any more or less to me than one of you.
I fervently believe that everyone’s efforts led to my freedom, everyone’s belief that the world contains as much goodness, and as much justice, as we create and put into motion. Not an ounce more or an ounce less.
I want this freedom, this justice for Shane and Josh, with every morsel of my being. Every breath I take, every time I open my eyes in the morning and every time I close them at night, I see them. I know them and I love them.
I want to ask you to please, look to the positive, feel the power and the strength of what you’ve done. Help us give one, last, huge push!!!
Sarah Shourd & Friends Reunite
I’ve asked the world to redouble its efforts. But what does that mean? It means do what you do best, whatever it may be. Do what you do best for Shane and Josh. We need funds for legal expenses, translation and travel. We need people to buy FREE THE HIKERS t-shirts and jewelry. We need prayers and we need action. We need more people to visit the website and sign the new petition. Make a “Free All Three” banner and hang it up in the most visible spot you can find. We need you to mobilize and be ready for the next step when it comes.
We have all been changed and continue to be changed by this experience. Thanks to all the love and support I’ve felt in the last month I’m slowing thawing out, but sometimes it feels like a glacier in there, waiting for thousands of years for just enough sun. When Josh and Shane get out they will help me figure it out. No one knows me as well as they do. When the three of us are together and free, I know we will heal.
Prison is not heaven or hell. Nothing in life made us ready for this experience, but Shane and Josh are coping. They are as strong as they need to be. They will walk out unbroken.
One of my students once said to me, “A part of me is yours forever” because I was there to help him get through a difficult time in his life. I want to say the same to all of you on behalf of myself, Shane and Josh, “A part of us is yours, forever.”
“Thank you.”
When Josh and Shane are free we will all be able to exhale collectively, pause and then ask, “Who’s next?” There are millions more lined up, waiting to get free. “What’s next?” There are countless changes that devoted, committed people like ourselves can band together and fight for. I’m looking forward to the day. I’m hoping that Shane and Josh will soon be standing with us, asking these questions and finding answers.
Sarah Shourd
SPECIAL SCREENING OF SHANE BAUER’S FILM ABOUT DARFUR
Oct 19th
Special Screening of Songs to Enemies and Deserts
Free the Hikers, in conjunction with MN Film Arts, are hosting a special screening of this documentary created by Shane Bauer and David Martinez. Songs to Enemies and Deserts is a work of art created by Shane and David about the people of Darfur and their pursuit of a peaceful community. Please join us!!
- DATE: October 23, 2010
- TIME: 1:30 PM (35 minutes in length)
- PLACE: St Anthony Main
- ADDRESS: 115 SE Main St, Minneapolis, MN 55414
- COST: $12 ($8 Students)
- FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE
- DOWNLOAD PDF FLYER
- EVENT PAGE ON MAIN FREE THE HIKERS SITE
This documentary is about an area of Sudan that is controlled by two factions of armed rebels. It is about the daily lives of the farmers and herders who live there as they interact with the rebels who try and hold the forces of the Janjaweed and the Sudanese army at bay.
INTERVIEW WITH DAVID & SHANE FOR CURRENT TV ABOUT THE FILM:
This is a short news piece that Current TV did about Songs to Enemies and Deserts. Shane is on the viewer’s right and his co-director, David Martinez is on the left.
SHANE BAUER ON MAKING THE FILM, REPUBLISHED FROM HIS WEBSITE:
Songs to Enemies and Deserts:
A Film About The Rebels Of Darfur
From the mountains of Jebel Marra in central Darfur a ragged group of rebels swept down onto Sudanese military bases in 2003, routing the government’s soldiers and making off with rifles, artillery, and vehicles. The Sudan Liberation Army had scored its first victory, and no one could predict what would follow. Instead of taking on the rebels directly, the Khartoum government sent bombers and horse mounted militias to murder and terrorize Darfuri civilians. The ensuing horrors were documented by the international news media and the world’s outcry was part of the reason that the attacks subsided, at least temporarily. With the government murdering the civilian population to quell the rebellion, the rebels became the civilians’ only protection force.
Who are these men and why did they begin fighting in the first place, and what part do they play in the ongoing situation that is Darfur? Their demands are widely supported by the civilian population: they want roads and schools, clean water, health care, and representation in their country’s despotic government, controlled by an elite that has ruled from the country’s northern region since the Sudanese gained independence from the British in 1956.
David Martinez and I wanted to understand these rebels’ world, their motivations, their histories, who they were and why they fought. We felt that in all of the attention that Darfur was getting, the Darfuri people themselves were often portrayed as abject victims, with hands outstretched, needing the west to come to their rescue. And yet here were Darfuris who had risen up against a murderous and racist regime, people who were very far from being helpless Africans.
In August 2007 we went and found them in North Darfur, lived with them for five weeks, and shot a movie about them.
ABOUT THE FILM:
Songs To Enemies And Deserts, (35 minutes), NTSC, Color, Filmed on digital video. In Arabic, Zaghawa, and English with English subtitles. Directed by David Martinez and Shane Bauer, photographed by David Martinez, edited by David Martinez, Shane Bauer, and Iona Sidi. Sound mixed by Luis Guerra, Terremoto Studios, New Mexico.
SCENE FROM THE FILM:
Our heartfelt thanks to MN Film Arts for their assistance & to all supporters of Free The Hikers!
Sarah was released September 14, 2010. Shane and Josh remain in detention.
Please show your support for our efforts to release them to their families.
ALL proceeds go to FREE THE HIKERS!
HOW TO DONATE TO THE FREE THE HIKERS CAMPAIGN
Sep 12th
FREE THE HIKERS CAMPAIGN: led by Shane, Sarah, and Josh’s families is continually incurring expenses. Since learning of their imprisonment, the families have been working tirelessly to bring them home. They have hired an Iranian attorney in Tehran, hired Farsi translators to ensure accurate and respectful communication, maintained a website to share Shane, Sarah, and Josh’s story, and used social networking strategies to share the story with fans on Facebook and Twitter.
The generosity of our supporters already helped us to afford the hikers’ mothers to make the trip to Iran to visit their children at Evin Prison. Their expenses there included airline flights and hotel accommodations, as well as translators, guides, and ongoing work with their Iranian attorney. Your contributions went directly to making this trip a reality. Any contributions you make will help us to keep up with the continual costs of the Free the Hikers campaign.
Donations larger than $100 are now tax-deductible!!
Your generous donation will make the difference in doing everything possible to free Shane, Sarah, and Josh and allow them to return home to their lives and their families. For smaller donations, please click HERE.
