New Americans Campaign Partners Unite for Citizenship in San Francisco

Earlier this month, more than 225 New Americans Campaign partners from across the country convened in San Francisco for the annual United for Citizenship Practitioners Conference. The conference, held Aug. 3-5, provided local partners the opportunity to share best practices, network with other practitioners and volunteer at a large citizenship workshop.

“The New Americans Campaign celebrated its fifth anniversary last month and this year’s conference underscored just how much our national network has grown to include more partners and best practices,” said Melissa Rodgers, director of programs at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and the director of the New Americans Campaign. “The Campaign has an immense amount of expertise to harness because we’ve refined our work over the last five years. Today, our partners are able to serve more than twice as many citizenship applicants now compared to when we first started. This year’s conference served as a special opportunity for us to celebrate our joint mission that is far greater than what any of our organizations can achieve individually.”

Here are the highlights from this special event.

The conference culminated in a large six-hour workshop on Saturday at the SEIU Local 87 office where the San Francisco Pathways to Citizenship Initiative and Campaign partners from across the country provided free citizenship services in eight different languages to over 235 aspiring new Americans. More than 60 partners volunteered their time to register applicants and assist with the various components of the citizenship application. 140 green card holders left the workshop ready to file their naturalization paperwork.

Full room of citizenship applicants at the mega workshop on Sat., Aug. 6	Campaign partners who volunteered at the workshop receive training
Volunteers helped aspiring new Americans complete their citizenship applications	Applicants worked with Campaign partners to complete citizenship forms