Rolling Jubilee Update: Give the Gift of Debt Demolition!

The Rolling Jubilee is near $500,000 of donations.

[for nearly $10 million of debt forgiveness.]

Letters have been mailed to dozens of debtors.

Make a gift of debt liberation, using our holiday cards.

Start planning for January 21st, a national day of debt organizing.

But first… Thank You.

You have made the Rolling Jubilee a success of unimagined proportions.

It’s been just over one month since the People’s Bailout telethon.  Can you believe it?  Relive the magic by watching clips here.

Since that incredible night, we have been overwhelmed with scores of personal stories, hundreds of offers to help, thousands of emails and, of course, over ten thousand individual donations.  These donations – averaging just over $40 apiece – now total nearly $500,000, or ten times our initial goal.

Every donation will be used to help relieve someone’s debt burden, while shining much-needed light on the predatory debt system.

We have already begun to purchase debt.

On Monday November 12, we purchased $100,145.74 of medical debt for $5,000.  Documentation of this purchase is available on our blog.  Thanks to donors like yourself, we are able to expose the vulture-like nature of debt collectors, and show just how little your debt is worth to the banks and lenders who sell it off in bundles at pennies on the dollar.

Earlier this week, we sent letters to the 44 debtors whose debts have been abolished so far.  Read Nick Pinto’s Village Voice story covering our mailing.

Rolling Jubilee Holiday Cards: Give debt abolition for the holidays this year!

You can choose one of three illustrated cards to give the gift of debt liberation!  Go to http://rollingjubilee.org/gifts/ and generate a personalized holiday card for printing or emailing. These cards are another way you can work to build a social movement against the predatory debt system. Together, we will keep the Jubilee rolling.

Art for the Rolling Jubilee holiday cards was graciously donated by Tim Paul, Corinne Reid, Kyle Smart, and Marc Scheff.

Next steps, and how you can help.

Strike Debt will host visioning session on debt on January 21st, MLK Day. There will be coordinated events in cities around the country. Keep your eyes on www.strikedebt.org, as well as Facebook and Twitter, for further announcements about this historic gathering.

Our primary focus over the next few months will be to deeply target the role of debt in our broken healthcare system. We will announce a substantial debt buy – made possible by your generosity – in concert with the release of in-depth report on medical debt that will follow the model of our report on the debt crisis emerging from Hurricane Sandy.  The strike of the Rolling Jubilee and the public service document on the healthcare system, aims, like all Strike Debt actions, to educate, create paths for direct action and mutual aid.  When we attack the current system, we build alternatives in its place.

Are you starting a local Strike Debt chapter? Great! We’d love to hear about it.  We’re building a directory of chapters around the world.  To get involved in the organizing, send a brief email to organize@strikedebt.org with your contact info, website, and anything else you would like to share with the Strike Debt organizing team.

Again, thank you for leading the way to a world where the debts we owe are to each other and not to the 1%.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year,

Strike Debt