josh | July 3, 2025
The fifth annual Bucks-Mont Pride Festival took place Sunday at the Abington Art Center, hosted by the Welcome Project PA. Courtesy of Josh Blakesley
by Heidi Roux and Josh Blakesley, For The Inquirer
————————————————————–
Published July 3, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET
When we — Heidi Roux, the former executive director of Immigrant Rights Action, a nonprofit based out of Doylestown, Bucks County, and Josh Blakesley, executive director of the Welcome Project PA, a nonprofit based out of Montgomery County — met, our first reaction was both familiarity and curiosity.
Both organizations are nearly the same “age,” and as young, small, grassroots nonprofits serving marginalized and vulnerable communities, there were parallel experiences and plenty of shared values.
The question we asked ourselves then was: “Why are we not working together?”
As we kept running into each other at meetings and gatherings centered on immigration justice, joining forces started to feel like a concrete possibility.
WPPA had, in the past, hosted occasional free legal clinics with immigration attorneys, as well as offering some Spanish-speaking mental health services. IMRA had, from its beginning, been serving Bucks County residents in immigrant communities with legal assistance, education, advocacy, and more.
Heidi Roux, former executive director of Immigrant Rights Action
And since the counties we serve in border each other, there are people and families who move back and forth between the two. This reality had already led to our organizations working together to coordinate assistance for them.
But the harsher reality is that the needs of the communities we serve are overwhelming. There are very few resources in the Philadelphia suburbs for people navigating the ever-changing and incredibly challenging immigration system. While Roux and IMRA were making a positive impact in Bucks, there was much more that needed to be done.
Likewise, Blakesley and WPPA’s board of directors had discussed at length whether the organization had the capacity to meet the needs of the immigrant community members in Montco — as WPPA has been doing with LGBTQ communities for a number of years — via advocacy, mental health resources, education, and peer-led programming.
These are particularly challenging times for organizations serving the communities we serve: A slew of executive orders have targeted both LGBTQ people and immigrants, nonprofits are facing federal funding freezes and cuts, and foundations are shifting their funding priorities.
But the staff and boards of each of our organizations are committed to challenging harmful rhetoric and shifting the narrative away from fear, division, and harm. As community-focused organizations that represent the people we serve, relationships keep us sustainable and help us live out our mission effectively.
Josh Blakesley, Executive Director of The Welcome Project PA, with Jamila Winder, Vice Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners
We understood that IMRA + WPPA = more community, deeper, more connected relationships, and a wider capacity to uplift and empower community members who are currently scared, confused, and feeling targeted.
We spent the better part of the past year talking to our communities about whether the two organizations should merge, to leverage the strengths of both organizations, enhance our collective impact, and foster a more inclusive and sustainable future for those we serve.
Our communities not only wanted it, they got behind it.
At the Immigrant Rights Action’s fundraising event in May, when we announced that IMRA would become the Immigrant Justice Program at the Welcome Project PA, the decision was applauded and celebrated. “We need this. We have to do this. It just feels right,” we were told.
The story is just beginning. Roux has moved materials and furniture into her new office space in WPPA’s location in Hatboro, and the first legal clinics have been held for our merged communities. The calls and support keep coming in — because the community has spoken.
Widen the welcome. Do it now, do it often, keep doing it. And do it together.
Widening the welcome means providing the necessary tools so people can have more agency in their lives, and so they can build resilience and community power together.
Widen the welcome. Do it now, do it often, keep doing it. And do it together.
It is a directive that resonates beyond the nonprofit space. We know immigrants, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized communities face interconnected challenges. That is why it is imperative we work together across identities and movements to build inclusive systems of support and of advocacy.
Uniting our strengths, resources, and voices enables us to build greater capacity and move toward a more welcoming world for all.
Heidi Roux heads up the Immigrant Justice Program at the Welcome Project PA in Hatboro. Josh Blakesley is the organization’s executive director.
