Anti-Hate Group Asks For One Hour Volunteers

A Wisconsin group’s campaign called Hours Against Hate is asking people to volunteer a single hour to try to reduce bigotry and hatred.

The pledge asks that you pledge one hour or more to do something for someone who “doesn’t look like you, pray like you, love like you or live like you.” Hannah Rosenthal helped start the initiative when she worked for the State Department a couple years ago. Now, Rosenthal heads the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. She says Hours Against Hate is relevant in Wisconsin because hate exists here.

“It’s not something that only they have and only those other countries have. We don’t have to look very far from here in Milwaukee to realize that we had a hate crime in Oak Creek less than a year ago.”

That was the mass shooting at the Sikh temple. Rosenthal says there are many ways to spend an hour volunteering. She says examples include a Jewish teenager reading children’s books at a Muslim preschool, or a church group making a food basket for someone at a shelter.

Reverend Willie Briscoe hasn’t decided yet how he’ll volunteer, but the president of Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope says he signed up for Hours Against Hate because he feels connected to it.

“All of us,for some reason or another, on this planet have been put down, discriminated against .. and I think God intends for us to solve this together. We have a commonality in this pursuit.”

Briscoe says Martin Luther King Jr. used to say hate affects everyone. Signup for Hours Against Hate can be done through their website.