I don’t remember exactly when I first got personally involved with the Athens Immigrants Rights Coalition, but I do remember first learning about this organization when I was working for a local nonprofit.
I was doing a lot of community organizing in the public school space and so I joined the subcommittee that was made for teachers that were involved with AIRC, AIRC-EDU.
At the start of 2025 when the Trump-fueled ICE raids first intensified, I helped to organizing a door-knocking campaign in the Athens area. I split the area up into zones that were loosely connected to the area elementary schools and, when a direct connection in those schools existed, I found out where many of the Latin families were living and we started in those neighborhoods. We’d distribute red cards and other information intended to keep everyone well-informed on their rights.
Our local school district kowtowed to the federal administration’s threats because I think they were afraid of losing funding that is desperately needed in Title-I districts.
During these visits, it became increasingly clear that families with school-aged children were particularly struggling. Obviously, everyone was scared, but there weren’t a lot of resources that were geared specifically toward how to talk to kids about ICE.
So, in consultation with some of the folks on the AIRC-EDU team, I built out La Balsa. Initially, it was a one-page quick resource guide, but over the course of the year, we added to it as feedback indicated.
La balsa is Spanish for the raft and I chose that name because that’s exactly what I intended for the website to be.
Visit: https://labalsaath.com