The Spirit of Thanksgiving: Migration Is Beautiful Helps Migrants in Memphis

In Memphis, Tennessee, a grass roots group is helping immigrants.  Volunteers with the Migration is Beautiful aid group have been filling boxes with lunches they had packed at First Congregational Church in Memphis.  Volunteers packed the lunches and other necessities for migrants at Memphis’ Greyhound terminal. At the terminal, dozens of migrants, the majority of them recently released from detention centers along the southern U.S. border, will be passing through Memphis.

Migration is Beautiful at one time was just a handful of people scrambling to take care of migrants, who all arrived hungry and without warm clothing to protect them through their chilly travels. But then,  the Memphis Feminist Collective and Comunidades Unides en Una Voz, two grassroots groups with two different focuses, stepped in to help.

After that, Migration is Beautiful went from a few volunteers trying to meet basic needs for migrants, to an infrastructure that informally but effectively organizes the growing list of volunteers and supplies that are steadily arriving at First Congregational Church.

Volunteer groups, following Memphis’ lead, also came together in Nashville and Knoxville. Similar informal aid groups were already running in Dallas, Chicago, and Washington D.C., among other large cities.

KJ