Knowing that people may feel moved to make donations in her honor, Norina spoke about her preferences a couple of weeks ago. She said that Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth in San Francisco was at the top of her list. “They do important work with kids in public schools who really need help.” Since then, we’ve contacted the organization and learned more about their work and Norina’s involvement. Executive Director N’Tanya Lee has been very supportive of our family, informative, and helpful.
Through Ms Lee we’ve learned that Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth is a San Francisco community organization working to create more hope, opportunity and justice for the city’s children and youth. Norina volunteered on a SF State student research project that supported Coleman families’ organizing efforts to improve the quality of public schools in the southeast part of the city. She was especially moved by Coleman’s work to give a voice to families who are usually ignored by people in power. She provided key research for Coleman parent and student leaders’ education policy agenda, which ultimately led to an important victory just this spring. Facing the elimination of summer school after brutal budget cuts, Coleman parent and student leaders took their case to city leaders and won funding to restore summer school for nearly 2,000 students who needed that additional support the most. Coleman staff were so impressed with Norina’s dedication to the work, are so grateful for her contributions, and are honored to know that Norina was inspired by the work of Coleman parent and youth leaders.
Coleman Advocates has established a Norina Miller Fund. Ms Lee has assured us that any donations made to this fund will be put to excellent use, as per Norina’s wishes. When I first spoke with Ms Lee, the “Donate” page on the organization’s website was out of order. It’s been repaired since then. The Coleman Advocates website address is: http://www.colemanadvocates.org/
We understand that some may wish to make a particular donation in accordance with a personal experience or interest shared with Norina. We’ve been asked specifically about organizations related to Meher Baba. There are several important organizations, two of which can be found through the links on this site’s page about Meher Baba. Norina and our family have greatly appreciated and made recent donations to the Meher Fund, an organization with the sole purpose of supporting the Meher Free Dispensary at Meherazad, near Ahmednagar in rural western India. The Dispensary has provided free medical care for the poor and under-served of this area since 1970. The Meher Fund website address is: http://www.meherfund.org/
We will deeply appreciate any and all gestures made in Norina’s memory, as we are already deeply grateful for every single thought, prayer, word, and gesture that has come to us in the wave of support that is carrying us through this time. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.
I am glad to learn about the Coleman Advocates for Youth and Children and Norina’s
involvement and commitment to them. I will happily contribute wishing it could be more. It is still hard to believe that she is not here among us. She is so full of life and positive in her presence. I miss her and will never forget her marvelous beauty of spirit and beauty. She was dignified, buoyant, charming, adorable, sweet, hard working, fair, smart, humble and no one is like her. Terra and Jeff must be very proud of her a I am of them. It is Grace that allowed you both to be with her at the end of this life and to help her transition into the next phase. She is not gone. She is with us and God and the impact of this Norina Miller life will reverberate in the world for ever.
Dear Terra, Jeff, Lee, Cole and Dale,
Norina was such an amazingly wise little girl. I can never forget how she listened and then spoke with that gentle sureness. Even when it was hard. I remember a birthday party that we spoke about, when she was a little one, and was the only one in the class not invited. It was a terrible thing, but she realized something about herself. She said she didn’t ever want to be forgotten again. She was 11 when she told me about that. Not many women know, with the dignity and self assuredness that she possessed, that she didn’t want to be forgotten.
You are all, each of you, in my heart. I am very blessed to have known you.
Much love,
Susan
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an very long comment but after I clicked submit
my comment didn’t show up. Grrrr… well I’m not
writing all that over again. Anyways, just wanted to
say great blog!