Category: Events

World Refugee Day is celebrated every year on June 20th. This event honors the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence. The Missoula community has stepped up to welcome more than 20 refugee families in the last year and make Missoula a welcoming place that refugees can call home. Soft Landing Missoula is excited to celebrate the addition of these families to our community with a soccer tournament and community party on June 17th.

Held at the new fields and pavilion at Fort Missoula Regional Park, this will be a 7v7 round-robin tourney with at least 2 games guaranteed. There will also be a kids game and kids activities.

June 17th Word Refugee Day Cup at Fort Missoula Regional Park

9 a.m. Tournament starts.
4 p.m. Final match.
5 p.m. Dinner
6 – 8 p.m. Music – featuring the WhizPops!

Individual Registration: $45/person, $40 for an active volunteer. Please consider doubling your registration to sponsor a refugee player. 

Please register on the Missoula Parks and Rec website, and also please note the registration tips below before beginning the registration process!

Registration Tips

This is a new system that Parks and Rec is working with and it can be a little picky. Here are some helpful tips. If you have any questions, you can just call the VERY nice people at Parks and Rec and they will help you get it set up!  (406) 721 – 7275

1) This link takes you to the “Activity Search Page”.  In the box “keyword search” type : Soft Landing.

2) Scroll down and you will see two options. Choose from regular registration, $45, or active volunteer registration, $40.

3) At the bottom of the page click “Add to cart”.

4) It will then ask for username and password.  This system is pretty new, but if you have used it to sign up yourself or your family for any other P&R activities, you may already be in the system.  If you are (I only have a kids swim pass and I was) try to put your phone number (including area code) in as your password and your last name with a capital first letter in as your password.  If you have any info in the system, including just a phone number, it won’t let you create a new account and will give you the run around. If these login and password hints don’t help, please just call Parks and Rec at (406)721-7275.

5) The rest should be pretty self-explanatory. You will have the option to add an additional fee for “sponsoring” a refugee player or an additional donation to Soft Landing Missoula. If you select neither of these and just click Continue at the bottom, your individual registration fee will show up on the next page.

6) One other note:  After you are logged in and filling out the actual form, sometimes if you try to go back it will kick you out of the registration, but you are still logged in.  If this happens, click Search at the top of the page, and select Activity Search on the left hand side. Continue with above search directions. If it says duplicate registration, you might have to clear your old attempt by selecting the (-) next to it and starting over.

7) Thank you for hanging in there. We realize the trickiness of this is not ideal.  Parks and Rec staff are super nice and accommodating. If you need any help, please don’t hesitate to call them. That number again is (406)721-7275.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jeannette Rankin Peace Center has named our very own Mary Poole the 2017 Peacemaker of the Year. We here at Soft Landing could not think of a more deserving person and we are so happy for her!

We’d like to invite you to help us celebrate Mary this Saturday, May 20 from 3 – 5 p.m. at Har Shalom (3035 S Russel St., Missoula). Come for a short presentation and stay for cookies and a reception. Mary’s hard work and dedication to improving the lives of refugees is an inspiration to so many of us and we sure are proud of her for receiving this honor.

Self-directed refugee stories from the new American West

We are so excited to be a small part of this AMAZING project that is giving some of Missoula’s new refugee families the chance to tell their own stories from behind the cameras!  

According to the project page, “The New Neighbors Project explores the relationship between new refugee arrivals and long-time Montanans through a tapestry of self-directed first person stories…Follow refugees as they venture into dramatic western terrains (both physical and social) and glimpse the spirit of our changing state.”

Please consider contributing to this Kick Starter Campaign to help them get this project off the ground and equip the filmmakers with appropriate equipment. Donations accepted through Thursday, May 25!

Check it out!

 

Have you ever been too nervous to engage in conversation with neighbors, friends, and family around refugees or other potentially divisive topics? Or maybe you have no trouble diving in, but you find it rarely goes well? Do you want to learn more about ways that we can use dialogue to create a welcoming community for all? 

Then join Soft Landing Missoula as we explore “Dialogue Across the Divide” and gain new skills to more comfortably exist in this challenging space. This two-session training will be co-facilitated by Robert Rivers and Fernanda Barreto Krum with Imagine Nation Brewing and Betsy Mulligan Dague with the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center.  Together, they bring decades of experience working in situations of conflict at home and abroad to promote peace and healing in communities. Mary Poole with Soft Landing Missoula will also cover a few ways to use your new skills to promote a safe and welcoming home for refugees here in Missoula. Attendance will be capped at 20-25 to provide a quality interactive experience for all participants so register below!

When: Wednesday May 10th from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. and Thursday May 18th from 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Where: Fireside Room at the UCC Church- 405 University Ave, Missoula, MT 59801
Cost: $35. Includes pizza, non-alcoholic beverages, and coffee/tea both nights. Limited scholarships available.

A delicious Middle Eastern meal cooked by refugee families, an Oscar-winning film about Syrian rescue workers and a keynote address by a nationally recognized Muslim scholar are among the highlights of Celebrate Islam Week April 24-30.

The week’s events, sponsored by SALAM, Standing Alongside America’s Muslims, mark the second annual Celebrate Islam Week. SALAM is a Missoula group dedicated to supporting our Muslim neighbors through education, understanding and informed, respectful discussion.

• At a banquet Monday, April 24, at First Presbyterian Church, 235 S 5th St. West, diners will be treated to Middle Eastern dishes prepared by refugees and Missoula residents. Places are reserved at SALAMMissoula.eventbrite.com and payment is made at the door ($15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors).

• Ambassador Mark Johnson will introduce the Academy Award-winning film, “The White Helmets” at a free showing Tuesday night, April 25, at 7 p.m. at the UC Theater on the UM campus. The 40-minute documentary, co-sponsored by Soft Landing Missoula, follows courageous rescue workers in war-torn Syria. It will be followed by a 30-minute panel discussion. See the Facebook event for more details.

• On Wednesday, April 26, students who studied abroad in Morocco and the United Arab Emirates will discuss their experiences in the Islamic world in Room 305 of the UM Forestry Building, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

• Dawood Yasin of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif., the first Islamic liberal arts college in the United States, will deliver the keynote address, focusing on Islam’s long history in this country and America’s Muslim community today. Yasin’s speech will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 27, in Urey Lecture Hall on the UM campus.

• Earlier the same day (Thursday, April 27) at a noon luncheon at Emmaus House, 532 University Ave., Eamon Ormseth will lead a discussion on “What Do Muslims Need? How Allies Can Help.”

• Two weekend events at Congregation Har Shalom, 3035 S Russell St., cap Celebrate Islam Week: Dances of Universal Peace at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 29, and “Crossing the Bridge,” a ritual of connection designed to help overcome the barriers that separate us, at 2 p.m. on Sunday, April 30.

What?!?!  That’s right folks!  If there are 3 things we have found that unite communities across all cultures, it is soccer, food, and music!  So, in honor of World Refugee Day, we decided to bring you all three!

While we work out details with our partners, we wanted to be able to at least give you the date, June 17th, and a general idea of times to mark on your calendars. Know that it will be a round-robin tourney-style event starting in the morning with 7 v. 7  games all day. The championship game will more than likely start around 4:30/5, followed by dinner and music.

This whole day will be family friendly and take place out on our newest fields at Fort Missoula Regional Park. There is a pavilion with a playground near by, we will have an impromptu kiddos tourney at some point and we will of course have to break out the face paints! So many more details to follow, including how to register for this first annual event – we are just so excited we had to share now!!!!

If you or someone you know would be interested in helping to sponsor this event, please contact info@softlandingmissoula.org to start that conversation.  Thanks!