More than 1,000 demonstrators across the United States and Canada highlighted the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as they called on elected officials to support a cease-fire during Holy Week events in late March.

At least 25 events coordinated by Mennonite Action called on U.S. Senators and Representatives and Canadian Members of Parliament to “Send Aid, Not Bombs,” denounced Israel’s siege of Gaza and demanded the release of all hostages. Many events collected donations to illustrate the message.

Mennonite congregations in the Chicago area worked with Muslim and Jewish organizations — as well as Wheaton College students — to collect and spread out 1,400 pairs of shoes on Federal Plaza, each representing 25 Gaza deaths.

“The vast majority of our donations came from Awad, who works with Coalition for Justice in Palestine,” said Lombard Mennonite Church Pastor Nathan Perrin, who noted Living Water Community Church and Chicago Community Mennonite Church also played significant roles. “Our original goal was to gather about 300 to 400 pairs of shoes among Chicago-area Mennonite churches, but the local Muslim community wanted to contribute something too. The Palestinian and justice-minded Jewish communities are wanting a public Christian voice since most churches have been noticeably silent, so they really helped to amplify the work we were doing.”

Perrin said the group hopes to ship the shoes to Gaza when the border opens to more aid.

“We scheduled a faith leader delegation with Sen. Dick Durbin, but his staff didn’t follow up with us,” Perrin added. “He’s been notoriously evading peace groups and accountability on this.”

In northern Indiana, about 150 demonstrators gathered outside Rep. Rudy Yakym’s office to lament the lives lost in Gaza and Israel since Oct. 7. Their action represented the third group demonstration calling on Yakym to support a cease-fire. While the Representative has not yet met with constituents in person on the issue, his staffers have reiterated his support for Israel’s military actions in Gaza and other surrounding countries.

About two dozen participants laid on the ground in a “die-in” to symbolize the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed by weapons funded by U.S. tax funds.

“As a mother, grandmother and retired nurse-midwife, I grieve for infants who cannot survive because hospitals are being bombed and cannot provide the warmth, oxygen and care these infants need,” said Julia Gautsche of Assembly Mennonite Church in Goshen as she helped children write messages of peace to Yakym during the event. “I am asking Rep. Yakym to support a permanent cease-fire to save innocent civilian lives, especially these vulnerable and defenseless infants and children.”

Other demonstrations decorated jugs of water or piles of food and toiletry items with calls for a cease-fire. More than 200 people marched to Rep. Ben Cline’s office in Harrisonburg, Va., with rice, beans, flour, bread and other relief items. A group in Washington, D.C., brought food, medicine, water, shoes and a quilt in a child-sized coffin when it met March 27 with staff at Rep. Glenn Ivey’s office.

Mennonite Action stated in a release that the emphasis on relief comes after the U.S. voted to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency through 2025 in the latest government funding bill. UNRWA is the primary organization that provides meals and relief for those in Gaza. Famine looms in Gaza as nearly a quarter of children in northern Gaza are malnourished.

After delivering bread, olive oil and paintings to Rep. Judy Chu’s office in Pasadena, Calif., a group sang hymns and prayed during a sit-in outside her office. Signs and quilts demanding an end to bombing were unfurled outside political offices or statehouses in Madison, Wis.; Denver; Boise, Idaho; Saint Paul, Minn.; Philadelphia; Wichita, Kan.; New York City; St. Catherines, Ont.; and Morgantown, W.Va.; among other locations.

Students at Conrad Grebel University College held a hymn sing on the Waterloo, Ont., campus as they urged the college to use its voice to call for a cease-fire and pressure other institutions to do the same. Students at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., and Bethel College in North Newton, Kan., rang bells in remembrance of the lives lost and made similar pleas for an end to the war.

The week of action was punctuated on April 1 by a military strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen humanitarian workers, prompting global outrage and even admission of error by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Though as of April 3, U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration had been unwilling to call for Israeli military restraint or change its policy on Gaza.

Mennonite Action is working to expand local organizing trainings after holding weekend events in February and March in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and was awarded a $10,000 grant from Mennonite Church USA’s Church Peace Tax Fund in February.