U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations have had ripple effects across the country, leading some to take a stand\u00a0against the deadly incidents in Minneapolis earlier this year and continued ICE enforcement across the country.<\/p>\n
Many small businesses in Tompkins County have raised money for a group supporting new Americans and refugees, including one business that makes lattes and another\u00a0joining a nationwide knitting project. A yarn shop in the Albany area has also raised money selling red yarn, but for a Minneapolis nonprofit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great opportunity to make impact, to make a statement, but also to give back to the community,\u201d said Sam Gellar-Smith, co-owner, Protagonist Books and Coffee.<\/p>\n
Gellar-Smith felt moved to action after two people were killed in Minnesota amid federal immigration presence in the city.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Many businesses in Tompkins County have held fundraisers to support Ithaca Welcomes Refugees
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Fundraisers included selling red yarn and hot lattes
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The movement of knitting anti-ICE protest hats has extended across the country, including at a yarn shop in the Capital Region<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very personal. As my grandmother survived the pogroms in Poland prior to the Holocaust. She got out during that time, but much of her family did not. And it felt very similar to the stories she told me when I was young,\u201d said Gellar-Smith.<\/p>\n
So she decided to add an item to her menu.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were talking with our social media maven, Erica, and she said, you know, f\u2013 ICE. Let me just make a f\u2013 ICE latte. I was like, yeah, let’s do it,\u201d said Gellar-Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s a cool, bold statement, to give it that name,\u201d said Katy Bond, a Protagonist Books and Coffee customer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen local businesses and stuff, like, support the issues that they care about, I think it makes me more likely to go to that business,\u201d said Emma Parker Miller, a Protagonist Books and Coffee customer.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my friends that are here on visas and they can be gone any moment. And I think that sucks so bad,\u201d said Gray Lewis, also a customer.<\/p>\n
Gellar-Smith said adding a hot latte to the menu wasn\u2019t just a way to vent frustration, but to raise money for Ithaca Welcomes Refugees. The group connects immigrants and refugees with English classes, employment, furniture and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just really would encourage people to give people the benefit of the doubt, to have civil conversations, even over really hard subjects. I think it is possible to heal, but people need to have the will to do that and just to be able to listen and not be at each other’s throats all the time,\u201d said Casey Verderosa, executive director of Ithaca Welcomes Refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided that loving our immigrant and refugee neighbors here was something that we wanted to do in a sacrificial way,\u201d said Chris Cushman, owner of Connected Stitches Yarn and Fiber Shop, a neighbor of Protagonist Books and Coffee.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in the yarn world, shops are joining a nationwide trend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve actually had people come in that are getting back into knitting like they haven’t done it in decades. And they’re like, ‘I saw this hat, I got to make this hat. Where do I go?’\u201d said Cushman.<\/p>\n
For a few weeks, she donated sales of red yarn to Ithaca Welcomes Refugees.\u00a0Cushman and another shop in the Capital Region chose red for a reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hat was based on a Norwegian style where there was red, and it had a tassel coming off the back and it was a sign of resistance to the Nazis in the 1940s. So the new hats today were recreated based on that style,\u201d said Cecilia Tkaczyk, a former state senator and owner of Cece\u2019s Wool.<\/p>\n
Knitters and crocheters are making the red hats and sometimes wearing them to anti-ICE protests. Cece\u2019s Wool, located in the Capital Region, decided to donate $2,000 of red yarn sales to the\u00a0Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re in this together. What’s happening to you is happening to us as well. And we can’t just ignore it,\u201d said Tkaczyk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’ve appreciated seeing a business make a stance and not be quiet about it. But I’ve also had other community members tell me how disappointed they are in me and the choice to use the business and proceeds to donate,\u201d said Cushman.<\/p>\n
Ithaca Welcomes Refugees says more than a dozen businesses\u00a0have donated $7,000 from fundraisers.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News 1 reached out to more than half a dozen Republican lawmakers and Republican groups that declined or didn\u2019t return our request for an interview on this topic.<\/p>\n
Of the more than 7,800 immigrants and refugees that resettled in upstate New York in 2024, most of those ended up in Onondaga, Erie or Monroe counties. And most of them were from Afghanistan, followed by Congo and Syria, according to the state Department of Temporary and Disability Assistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations have had ripple effects across the country, leading some to take…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3475,387,257,28813,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,87,308,200],"class_list":["post-229344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-public-safety","tag-central-ny","tag-krystal-cole","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-public-safety","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}