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From the day you apply for asylum in the U.S., you have to wait almost half a year before you get a document that lets you work. Legal mazes can push the wait for months — or even years.
In response to the challenges faced by asylum-seekers and others with special immigration statuses as vulnerable people, volunteer-based organizations in Vermont have a solution: raising money through the arts.
Over the past few years, groups across the state have organized annual campaigns inviting local artists to share their creative sides with sponsors. The sponsors pay for access to weekly updates from artists — money that supports people who are seeking asylum. Participants can submit any form of art, from pottery to poems to educational videos about composting — if it can be created, it counts.
One such organization is the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network, established in 2019 at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, which sponsors individuals seeking asylum. Its services include long-term funding for living expenses, help finding housing, transportation to appointments and connections to local resources, such as medical services and family programs.
Right now the group is providing varying levels of support to 23 people, said Hannah Martin, chair of the network’s planning committee for the event.
But doing so requires significant time and money. Inspired by a similar event hosted by the Central Vermont Refugee Action Network, the Chittenden group started “Arts for Asylum Seekers.” Last year, the fundraiser’s first, organizers raised almost double their goal of $5,000. This year, with 19 creatives participating, they’re aiming for $10,000.
Artists sign up in March and commit to producing a certain number of pieces per week throughout April — whether that be completed works or photos of their progress — and email them to a list of sponsors who pay for them via donations to the asylum-seekers network.
Artists are responsible for acquiring their sponsors, often family, friends or colleagues, occasionally strangers interested in their work.
Bettie Barnes, who recently moved to South Burlington from central Vermont, serves as both a creative and an organizer for “Arts for Asylum Seekers.” After learning about the event last year through her church, the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, she and her partner, Bill Paine, decided to get involved.
This year she plans to submit photos each day of color-rich patchwork quilts she makes or short poems she writes.
Barnes also inspired her coworker to join in: Douglas Beagley, a creative writer and educational content creator at Physician’s Computer Company in Winooski.
“I get to do my favorite thing ever, which is creative writing, and I get to do it in a way that might raise a little money to help somebody who is trying to start a new life,” Beagley said. “And that really motivates me.”
This April, he plans to write something every day, then submit his work to ChatGPT to ask the artificial intelligence its thoughts on the text. He’ll reflect on the bot’s reply and share findings with his sponsors.
The Central Vermont Refugee Action Network, established in 2015, is nearing the end of its “March Arts Marathon” event. The organization has served as the catalyst for these community-based arts fundraisers, this being its fourth year holding the campaign.
As of March 21, 44 artists were participating and had raised about $65,000 from more than 1,180 sponsors.
Inspired by a monthlong fundraising poetry event from The Center for New Americans in Massachusetts, the central Vermont network decided to host its first event in 2021. It would be open to any and all creative works – whether written, painted, photographed, knitted or planted deep in the dirt.
After seeing the success of their fundraiser, the group decided to share its model with similar organizations, such as the Chittenden asylum group and Bridge to Rutland.
“There’s been a huge influx of people who are asylum seekers who come here and are working because, as I said, they have no other way to support themselves. And that number is increasing all the time,” said Rachel Walker Cogbill, the president of the central Vermont group.
Walker Cogbill is participating in her group’s event as a self-described “amateur” watercolorist. She has challenged herself to paint every day and share her progress with sponsors. Most of her work is based on photographs or illustrates nature fun-facts.
During her most recent endeavor, painting of a tiger moth, she learned the nocturnal insects have a self-defense ability to jam back the sonar waves of predators, such as bats, using an organ in their thorax. (The more you know!)
Team members with Bridge to Rutland expressed gratitude to the central Vermont network for helping them establish their “April Arts Marathon,” which is in its second year.
“It raises a considerable amount of money for us,” said Naomi Fatt, a volunteer with the group and retiree. Last year, Bridge to Rutland had 15 artists and raised over $10,000. This year the group is up to 28 artists and is aiming to raise $20,000.
“People discovered artists they didn’t know about or craftspeople they didn’t know about in their community, so that was a real plus,” said Fatt. “A couple of the artists said they would wake up in the morning, and they would feel motivated to create because they knew they were sharing it.”
That’s exactly the case for Juneau Rich, a senior double majoring in equity and education studies at Saint Michael’s College. When they signed up for the Chittenden group’s campaign, they loved the idea of making an impact while also having the opportunity to “test out” some of the artwork for their senior capstone project.
Their multimedia works, which range from paintings to fiber arts to costumes, seek to “capture the joyous parts of identifying as BIPOC and queer.”
“I know that my art may be temporary, but the impact it has on people and the community and social change is forever,” said Rich.
Kevin Lewis’ motivation is much simpler. A friend, who had participated in the Chittenden County event the year prior, told him he should sign up — so he did. Unfortunately for Lewis, his friend didn’t end up signing up, leaving him participating by himself.
Still Lewis is just “happy to give back.”
Lewis, who is the president of the nonprofit “The Hinesburg Record” newspaper, plans to infuse his artistic contributions with humor by “squishing” together images of famous pieces of art, such as the “Mona Lisa” and “Starry Night,” aiming to engage his sponsors in a playful exchange.
In the last weeks of March, organizers were excited for artist-sponsor dynamics like that to come to fruition — and to see play out the impact for their groups and the people they serve.
“We would be able to do so much less without it,” Martin said.
“These folks are here in our community already,” she added soon after, speaking of asylum-seekers. “And we want them to stay if we can, if they can.”
Correction (4/11/24): In a previous version of this story, Bettie Barnes’ first name was misspelled. Hannah Martin is chair of the planning committee for the event, not the entire Chittenden assistance network.