Dear Friends of The Sunny Center,
Do you HEART the Sunny Center? It’s Valentine’s Day – the one day of the year set aside to celebrate all things LOVE. But for us, we like to celebrate love all year round at the Sunny Center. It is our mission to spread love, peace and joy to the exonerees who so desperately need that spark of hope and healing in their lives.
In honor of St. Valentine’s Day, we ask you to honor love with a donation to the Sunny Center. You can help in one of two ways – or both! You can make a donation to support our daily operations at the Sunny Center. Or you can join our special campaign to Save the Sunny Center. The home where we have been living is about to be sold and we urgently need to find a permanent home so that we can continue to assist exonerees as they transition to life on the outside.
We feel your love and appreciate your support and we pledge to you that we will continue to work hard on behalf of the wrongly convicted. Happy Valentine’s Day to you!
OUR EXONEREE GUESTS AND VISITORS
Although we have a wait list of exonerees who would like to visit the Sunny Center, we have had to temporarily suspend our guests until we secure a permanent home. In the meantime, our residents at the Exonerees for Exonerees community residence continue to thrive. We are now at near capacity!
OUR VOLUNTEERS
This month, our volunteers Samantha and Charles Bookman arrived to take care of the goats, walk the dogs, feed the chickens and tend to the garden, along with assisting keeping the Sunny Center operations running smoothly. We are happy that they have become valued members of our Sunny Center family.
OUR FURRY AND FEATHERED FRIENDS
All our furry and feathered friends have been keeping warm and dry. For the love that they bring to our lives, and to those of our guests and visitors, we wish them Happy Valentine’s Day!!!
OUR ACTIVISM
We were very busy this month and just concluded a very ambitious and productive trip around the US. We appeared before the UN for a special screening of the film Fallout, which highlights the challenges in adjusting to post-release life. We spoke about the need to recognize the wrongfully-convicted as torture victims by international authorities.
We also spoke at the Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University and the Columbia University Law School, both in New York City.
We also stopped by our new Exonerees for Exonerees community and visited with the residents. We held our first community meetings. Our community is growing and we are grateful to be able to provide such a special place to each of our residents.
The Sunny Center and our work were featured in a number of media outlets recently, including the New York Times and Now This. It is important to keep getting the word out about the human rights issue of wrongful convictions. And it is important to keep sharing our message and raising funds to keep the Center going!
STAY CONNECTED
We know that, on Valentine’s Day and every day, love and compassion lead the way to peace and hope.
We are grateful for all our supporters out there who have joined us in this campaign to help heal all those who have been robbed of their lives, their liberty, their families and friends. For that, we thank you and keep you in our hearts.
Peace and Love,
Sunny and Peter