Dunes City Indivisible joined fellow democracy lovers Florence ORganizes (FOR) as guest hosts of FOR’s twice-monthly Coffee Conversations at the Bridgeport Market alongside the Port of Siuslaw Mar. 6.
Alongside mixed topics–which included showing off Benton County Indivisible’s “We Belong” video–the group engaged in assembling ICE whistle kits, described below.
Whistle Kit Ingredients
In addition to the following, you might want to supply plastic Ziploc bags (or similar) for distributing these kits and/or to make it easier for participants to carry some to give others. In practice, the “containers” are the participants and their pockets.
1. The ICE “Know Your Rights Card” or “Red Card”:
This is a wallet-sized card designed to help individuals assert their constitutional rights when approached by immigration officials. In various formats, such cards are widely available to order printed, or to print at home. A resource for both approaches is the Immigrant Legal Resource Center’s Red Cards page.
2. Directions for using the whistles:
Specifically, DCI chose to print the “zines” made available by Migra Whistle. These include general tips about using whistles to make your community safer, and the basic whistle alert codes.
Migra Whistle also posts a good description of the elements of a whistle kit party here.
DCI made a two-paged version of Migra Whistle’s zine to print on a single sheet, with one side in English and one in Spanish, that you can download here.
Tip: Remember to print these zines “actual size” rather than with the “fit to page” setting, as actual size will give you more even margins. These zines are designed to be folded similar to a map, in half in the long direction first, and then twice in half in the other direction to form the pages. (That way, upon unfolding only in the longest direction, the text is right-side-up on both sides.)
3. And the whistles themselves…
Steel referee whistles with lanyards are surprisingly cheap to order in bulk online, whether from Temu, Etsy, or the ubiquitous A-word. Here’s a current deal from Wal-mart for example, with 36 whistles and lanyards for under $15.
Migra Whistle and other resources include patterns for 3D printers with which to print one’s own whistle, and some outlets might sell 3D-printed plastic whistles.
However, nutritionist Susan Williams, who is part of the Dunes City Indivisible team, cautioned the Coffee Conversation attendees that 3D-printer filament is generally not food safe. This means there may be a risk of ingesting harmful chemicals by putting a 3D-printed plastic whistle in one’s mouth; so each user would have to make a judgment call about that risk.
“Dunes City Indivisible is proud to be collaborating with, and supporting the efforts of other local civic minded organizations in the Florence area, including Florence ORganizes, the Democratic Club and Florence Indivisible,” Williams said. “We all recognize the fact that we need to stand together, especially during these trying political times where democracy and our way of life are at risk.”