Thanksgiving Appeal

November 7, 2008

Dear x 50/250

All of us at Interlock Media would like to take this opportunity to wish you a good Thanksgiving as this watershed year draws to a close. We would also like you to earnestly consider making at least a modest contribution.

You may donate online at interlockmedia.com/donate.php or send your check to 215 First Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02142. We are a 501 (c)(3) non-profit/ ID # 04-3196-958. All contributions are gratefully received, promptly acknowledged, and deductible. (GuideStar.org)

Ten thousand necessary dollars is the hard number we need to raise by December 31st. Personal economic uncertainty is crippling each of us. It's a rotten time to ask.

So what gives us the moxie to ask for your support when even soup kitchens are struggling?

First, the global fiscal meltdown is a sputtering neon sign that reads "forward to a green economy." As an environmental film company, we have been exposing narcissistic and wrong headed global development for 25 years. 2008 has seen us further sharpen our mission in step with the severity of the crisis, launching new initiatives in green job creation.

In rural Massachusetts (orange-innovation.org) we led the conversion of a 150,000 sq ft building into a hub for social services, artisans, and green businesses. As a result, our host, the town of Orange, received a prestigious Sustainable Design Assessment grant from the American Institute of Architects.

Providing alternatives to violence for inner city youth, Interlock co-founded a program called Dive Kulture, the first of its kind. Our participants were dive certified and placed in marine education jobs.

Secondly, Interlock remains on the front line of media work and training in support of international conservation. One story we told this year tracked the life of Brazil's youngest Indian chief -- a man who must pay his bodyguards weekly. If he doesn't, given death threats against him, he may not live to lead his Xukuru people, currently ten thousand strong. Sugar cane ethanol producers and resort-builders could eliminate their highland oasis. Their lands serve as part of a buffer zone that offers some protection to the Amazon.

On behalf of Cultural Survival Inc., we expect to be soon assisting in the training of over 100 indigenous community based radio station managers in techniques to produce conservation focused dramas. Together we hope to be part of an effort to increase their audience from 1 to 12 million listeners.

Thirdly, global climate change promises fewer resources, more displacement, and more war. We explore the impact of war in our short, The Children of Sderot. It's clear that some therapeutic methods are generally more effective than others in shoring up resiliency and recovery among children stuck in zones of conflict.

We helped craft a proposal for an associate which resulted in improved mental health-care services to unaccompanied immigrant children living in shelters. A treatment has also been completed on inclusionary models in Special Education.


Fourth on our list of tangibles, we are close to completion of one of our major works -- Faith in the Big House, shot in an 18,000 acre Louisiana prison farm. At the start of 2008, one in a hundred Americans were behind bars. Evidently, jail house steel has become the new cure all. Through unprecedented access to a prison mission and interviews with the likes of Chuck Colson, born-again Watergate conspirator, we investigate efforts to reduce the rate of return to prison. Both faith-based organizations and secular groups claim superiority in this effort.

Fifth, now that we have proven ourselves capable of electing a black President, it is an opportune moment for Interlock to release its film on the roots of the global conservation movement. Set in Africa and Southeast Asia, The Extraordinary Passage of the Great White Hunter exposes the xenophobic paranoia that characterized the American perspective after the First World War. Through its narrative, one can begin to understand why the United States is doomed to be a pariah state when it comes to the likes of global warming having refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and sidelining attempts at environmental reform.

The sixth and last reason that we are emboldened to ask for your help is because we are artists and journalists. We in turn train emerging artists and journalists to use music, humor and images to advocate for human rights and the green economy. The broadcast arts can be powerful tools in regenerating social and even economic structures.

Please remember that if it truly proves impossible to donate money this year there are plenty of other ways to support us. Consider volunteering time on a project. You could also provide leads for goods or services for our upcoming auction. Or you might know someone who can. Your generosity has consistently helped make the difference for us -- and this year, most of all, it can help us do our part to solidify the irrefutable green economy.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Schwartz
Director
Interlock Media