Fostering peace and justice in Israel and Palestine through education.
May 2020 Update

Dear Pilgrims Family,

Your gifts to Pilgrims are supporting the great work of our Peace Partners – work that you will hear about in our first webinar on Saturday. If you have not yet registered, there is still time! Pilgrim's first one-hour webinar via ZOOM* is Saturday, May 30, 2020, 9 a.m. (Pacific Time), 12 Noon (Eastern Time). This conversation with Zoughbi Alzoughbi, founder of Wi'am: The Palestinian Conflict Transformation Center, Bethlehem, will update you on conditions in the West Bank and allow you to dialogue with fellow Pilgrims and Peace Partners.

There is no fee to register. You can ask questions for Zoughbi Alzoughbi on your registration. Click on the button below or the photo of Alzoughbi to register. After completing the registration, you will be sent a unique ZOOM meeting link.

Thank you for joining us,

Rev. Laurie Lyter Bright
*ZOOM is a free app available for your cell phone, tablet, or computer. Instructions for downloading ZOOM and joining our meeting will be provided with a unique link following your registration.
Lemon tree overlooking Wi'am playground
Teaching in the Time of Corona
Pilgrims of Ibillin’s board of directors are delighted to have been able to support the immediate needs of our friends at MEEI through an additional Coronavirus relief grant of $16,000 since students in Israel also had stay-at-home orders. This money paid for educational software, cameras, computers and more.

This additional support was made possible by you, the Pilgrims family, and means that learning can continue to be accessible for all students, regardless of economic or employment status of their families. The funding supported the purchase of laptops for teachers and students in need, as well as addressing gaps in software required to effectively reach students while keeping the health of the community the top priority. We’re so grateful to you for providing a bridge for the wonderful community of learning at MEEI!
Board Update
The Board of Directors of Pilgrims of Ibillin met (by Zoom, of course!) April 21-22 for our annual spring board meeting. We paused for a moment to remember our friend and fellow board member George Shalabi, a long-time advocate for MEEI and justice for Palestinians. He is dearly missed by all of us. Our meeting also included welcoming new board members Darrell Druvenga and Haifa Bautista. They will be joined in their work by our newest board member, Anne Weirich, who was elected to fill George’s position on the board. New board members continue our work and we give thanks for their willingness to serve.

As you know, our mission is to foster peace and justice in Israel and Palestine through education. We do that primarily by raising funds and making friends for Mar Elias Educational Institution and also for our various peace partners. To that end, at our board meeting we accelerated our 2020 gifts to our peace partners, approving all of our grants (totaling approximately $40,000) to be sent by the end of April. It was our sense that bumping up the grant process during the coronavirus pandemic would be of help to these partners.

Jean Hopson estate gift

Finally, and perhaps most exciting of all, after a multi-year planning process the board approved $212,000 in funding for various capital projects throughout the MEEI campus. As you read this, MEEI is buying news desks and new computers. They have already renovated a teachers’ lounge and will be doing so much more. The funds for these projects came from the estate of Jean Hopson, a long-time MEEI supporter who made Pilgrims and MEEI the sole benefactors of her estate.

The members of the board give great thanks to Jean Hopson and to everyone who supports our mission in ways large and small. She and you are, indeed, fostering peace and justice in Israel and Palestine through education.

If you would like to know more about the work of the board, please contact Peter Henry, our board president, at [email protected] or (704) 892-5641.
Flowers co-exist with gas canisters at Wi'am
Newly renovated teacher's lounge at MEEI
Playground in the shadow of the wall
 Rev. Laurie Lyter Bright  
she/her/hers
Executive Director, Pilgrims of Ibillin