Their cause turned into a nationwide phenomenon that raised $20,773,431 from 536,000 donors, provide invaluable resources to the non-profit Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) and landed the Willners on Time magazine’s list of the most influential people on the internet.
Photos by Brian Wedge '97
What motivated you to set up the original fundraiser? Why is RAICES important to you?
We’d just returned home from our first big vacation without our two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, and it felt so good to be back home with her. As we started to catch up on the news, we were struck by the contrast of being home safe with our own child while so many thousands of parents were forcibly separated from theirs. All week at work, moms were confiding to each other that they couldn’t sleep at night thinking about these families. When we researched which non-profits were doing direct work with these families, RAICES came up as an organization doing direct work in detention centers with these affected families. We thought we could probably raise a few thousand dollars between all the people who’d expressed interest that week—and it turns out a lot of people had the same idea!
Why do you think the fundraiser was so successful?
We started the fundraiser just a few hours after the government disclosed that more than two thousand children had been separated from their parents. The American public was just so shocked to learn that our own country had broken up so many families—people overwhelmingly felt they needed to do something, but weren’t sure what they could do. The fundraiser gave them something to focus on in that moment of crisis. Another really cool aspect of it is that it inspired a lot of people to go down to the border themselves or volunteer to help immigrant families in their own communities—so the moment of crisis also translated into longer-term action.
What was the most surprising aspect of the fundraiser going viral as it did?
We do think that the fundraiser was an important part of the public pressure that the administration ultimately caved to. By the time it was a week old, most people in America knew at least one person who had donated to it. It was a very public demonstration of the scale of Americans’ outrage from across the political spectrum. A fair portion of donations came from people who generally support President Trump’s agenda, but who drew the line at the mistreatment of these children. That was unexpected, and also gave us hope that, in an era of seemingly-endless division, we’d perhaps found the bottom.
How has RAICES used the funds so far?
So far, they’ve mostly used the funds from our fundraiser for bail bonds—they’ve paid out over $2,000,000 in bonds just this year. Our fundraiser spurred a lot of other people to raise money for RAICES too, so they’ve been able to use the overall intake for all kinds of things like hiring more attorneys and coordinators, taking cases they couldn’t afford to take before, food, supplies, and medical care for newly-released families.
Have you had continued involvement with RAICES?
We visited their offices in San Antonio in August to see how things were going and were so impressed with their operations there. RAICES have been experts in this space for over thirty years, and we want to continue to support them however we can.
How does it feel to be named by TIME—along with the likes of Kanye, Kylie Jenner, and the students of Parkland—among the most influential people on the internet?
Definitely surreal. I’d actually blocked this in my memory until you mentioned it! We really feel that RAICES deserves the spotlight here.
We were grateful to be in the right place at the right time to support them.
This story first appears in the Fall 2018 issue of Bowdoin Magazine.
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