SILVER SPRING, Maryland – Last week, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., or CLINIC, received a grant award of $15,000 from the Catholic Communication Campaign of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, or USCCB. The award will go towards launching Neighbors, Not Strangers, a new digital storytelling initiative to spread the message that immigrants are not strangers to be feared, but neighbors to be encountered and embraced. 

“We are thrilled and grateful to receive this grant,” said Anna Gallagher, executive director at CLINIC. “We thank the Catholic Communication Campaign for allowing us to move forward with this exciting new project to better tell the stories from our network – the stories of hope, resilience and kinship from the immigrant communities across our country.” 

“Given our origins in parish and community-based non-profits, and our foundational belief that we are ‘brothers and sisters all’ under our loving God, CLINIC is uniquely positioned to tell the stories of our affiliates and our immigrant brothers and sisters that they serve,” said Jeremy Dickey, director of communications at CLINIC. “Immersive digital storytelling is the new frontier in communications, and this project will allow us to invest in a platform that will draw audiences into the powerful stories from our network.” 

The Catholic Communication Campaign offers grants for communications projects that use media to spread the Gospel message and advance the USCCB’s general mission goals. Neighbors, Not Strangers will advance the USCCB’s goals to promote the life and dignity of the human person. In addition, by highlighting CLINIC’s religious immigration services and showing how their legal immigration stories help religious workers spread the Gospel, CLINIC will advance USCCB’s goal of supporting vocations and equipping Christ’s disciples for mission. 

Neighbors, Not Strangers will launch on Jan. 22, 2023, the 20th anniversary of the release of Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, the U.S. and Mexican bishops' landmark pastoral letter on migration.  

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