Title
Authorizing proper City officials to accept a gift membership in Welcoming America for the remainder of this year (2019).
Body
WHEREAS, Welcoming America is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that works to encourage and support communities to be more inclusive and welcoming towards immigrants, and
WHEREAS, Welcoming America and the American Immigration Council (a non-profit action organization created by the American Immigration Lawyers Association) convened several organizations to explore how they might work together to deepen inclusion across the nation, and
WHEREAS, Welcoming America and the American Immigration Council created a grant opportunity for conducting local level experimentation through a national inclusion campaign pilot project, and
WHEREAS, this national inclusion campaign pilot project was a competitive grant opportunity to support three local communities in testing out new collaborations and new inclusion strategies that bring together community members from different backgrounds in a spirit of a neighbor-helping-neighbor, or Do-It-Together, and
WHEREAS, the City of Saint Paul applied for this grant but was not awarded the grant, and
WHEREAS, Welcoming America recognized that even though it was not awarding Saint Paul the grant, that Saint Paul is pursuing important work in the area of inclusion and is a welcoming community and has offered Saint Paul a free Welcoming Network core membership (valued at $1,500) through the remainder of 2019.
WHEREAS, the educational and networking opportunities offered through membership in Welcoming America would be of significant benefit to the City of Saint Paul and our residents, and
WHEREAS, participation in Welcoming America would provide an opportunity to acquire technical support and knowledge to develop and improve the City of Saint Paul’s inclusion programming, and
WHEREAS, we recognize that participating in Welcoming America would benefit the residents of the City of St. Paul, and
WHEREAS, the St. Paul City Attorney’s Office, wishes to pursue membership in Welcoming America, now, therefore be it
RESOLVED that the St. Paul City Council authorizes the St. Paul City Attorney, Lyndsey M. Olson, and her designees to accept a gift membership on behalf of the City of Saint Paul in Welcoming America for the remainder of this year (2019).