One Person’s Downsizing Becomes a New Citizen’s Treasure

“People can be kind to each other, and this is who we are.”

New citizen Jaques Campher outside the federal courthouse in Columbus, OhioCourtesy of Jaques Campher and the Washington Post

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Welcome to Recharge, a weekly newsletter full of stories that will energize your inner hellraiser. See more editions and sign up here.

His Fourth of July tie had served Marc Johnson well. While cleaning out his closet, he decided to put it on eBay and sold it quickly. In a follow-up message, the buyer told him why he wanted the patriotic tie—for his US citizenship ceremony.

Johnson was floored. “I was like…I can’t charge him for this,” he told the Washington Post. “I thought about it for a second and just decided to send him the tie gratis…I wanted him to have the tie with my congratulations on becoming a citizen.”

Later, Johnson got the photograph: A smiling Jaques Campher, a South African native, wearing the tie after his ceremony in Columbus, Ohio. Next to Campher is his American wife, Lindsay Krasinski, and their daughter, Alice.

Campher told the Post that he sent the photo to thank Johnson for the gift of the tie, which he said he will treasure for years. Krasinski said her husband was so moved by the gesture “he got weepy when he told me about it.”

Campher gave Johnson permission to put the photo on social media, where thousands of people have liked it. Johnson said the overwhelmingly positive response may be because the turnover of the tie “reminds us people can be kind to each other, and this is who we are.” The gesture of a gift from one American to a newcomer reflects something else about the nation, he added. “With very few exceptions, everybody in this country is an immigrant in one way or another, by ancestry if nothing else.”

Here are some other Recharge stories to get you through the week.

  • Standing together as one. After a fire closed the Islamic Society of Mid-Manhattan mosque in New York, a synagogue a block away offered its space for Friday prayers. Nearly 600 people showed up, and Central Synagogue Rabbi Stephanie Kolin could hardly contain her joy. “This is one of the most beautiful moments I’ve seen in my entire life,” Kolin said. Following her statements of solidarity, the Muslim congregation blessed the synagogue and the rabbi. (NowThis News)
  • Stemming a shortage. Francois Agwala was a teacher and a principal in his native Congo. Raquel Molina Fernández was an instructor for a decade in Spain. They’re among scores of foreign-born teachers in Maine who are taking part in a new program that will help prepare and certify them to teach in the state. The reasons are clear, says Portland’s superintendent, Xavier Botana. Students of color make up almost half of the public school district’s population, and more than a quarter are multilingual. But the teaching staff is 97 percent white and overwhelmingly speak English at home. Districts need teachers regardless—and fewer US-born workers are choosing the profession. The Maine program, based on similar efforts in Chicago and Portland, Oregon, also combats “brain waste”—when skills of immigrants aren’t transferred to new nations because of language or certification issues. Molina Fernández, who moved to the United States last year from Spain, says the program will help new Maine residents contribute to their communities. It shows “that there’s support for our skills and our preparation.” (Christian Science Monitor)
  • Everybody wins. A Philadelphia nonprofit, Philabundance, and eastern Pennsylvania farmers have teamed up to produce cheese for the area’s hungry. The new initiative—the nonprofit also distributes surplus fruit and other goods from supermarkets to the poor—turns milk that would expire into something that lasts much longer. “Instead of going bad in 21 days, you have 6 months to a year,” said Kait Bowdler of Philabundance. What’s the group eyeing next? Turning skim milk left over in the butter-making process into spoonable or drinkable yogurt. (Philadelphia Citizen)
More Mother Jones reporting on Recharge

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate