Activism

Dim Sum for Elephants

You’re invited to Dim Sum for Elephants at 4:00pm, Sunday, September 13, at Cai’s Dim Sum Teahouse, 814 Western Avenue, West Brattleboro, Vermont, a dim sum buffet, with wine and desert. During the evening there will be a silent auction and an informative talk about the current status of African elephants and what is being done. The price to attend the event is $35.

One hundred percent of the proceeds after costs will go to benefit Wild Aid, an organization working to stem the unprecedented spike in illegal poaching of African elephants for ivory. Wild Aids’ campaign to reduce demand for elephant ivory in Asia is the single largest step that can be taken to save African Elephants from the threat of extinction. To find out more about them go to wildaid.org/elephants.

When Daryl Pillsbury and I met in March 2010 for the first time the meeting came about after I had seen a photo of him in the Reformer holding a “Legalize Marijuana” sign outside of the polling area during the March town elections. That year I was chafing from the awareness that, while Vermont was surely a significant marijuana consumer state, it was clear that a high percentage of Vermonters were caught up in the criminal justice web.The actual statistics didn’t matter to me. Two consenting Vermont adults being arrested for personal use and possession of marijuana were two too many.

If there was any noteworthy marijuana activism in Vermont at that time it was under the radar. In fact, it seemed as if there was no activism at all, which is why the photo of Daryl holding the legalize sign struck a chord with me.

On Saturday, September 12 at 5:30 p.m., The Root Social Justice Center will be hosting a 2-Year Anniversary Party to celebrate its second year of operation and raise funds to keep its doors open for years to come. The event is open to the public and free, though donations are encouraged.

The Root Social Justice Center, located at 28 Williams Street in the Whetstone Arts Building, provides a physically and financially accessible space to support and bring together communities working for social justice.

Experience the hope …. see something beautiful … at the Brattleboro Commons … now ’til 4pm

The Affordable Care Act, in spite of its name, is not making health care affordable for many Vermont residents. One in five people in Vermont are struggling with medical bills. Meanwhile, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, as a “non-profit” company, will receive a tax break of over $15 million this year, while ten of its executives are paid up to half a million dollars each.

BCBS has asked the Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) to approve a premium increase averaging at 8.4%, with increases of up to 14.3% on some plans. This is considerably more than most people’s wages rise in a year, so this increase, if granted, will be a huge setback for many people who purchase health insurance through Vermont Health Connect. This big win for the insurance company will do nothing to increase in access to care, especially for people on basic plans with high deductibles and co-pays. If anything points to the need to get the insurance industry out of health care, it is the effrontery of BCBS’s request for premium increases that will make health care less, not more affordable.

A few months ago when I was reordering checks from Brattleboro Savings and Loan, I looked through the possible options for a logo/symbol to put on them, and came across a confederate flag as one option.  I contacted the bank to ask if there was a check company I could deal with that didn’t offer that as I did not want to support such a company. 

My request was not received with the most understanding response, and I was quite concerned that my bank did not understand my concern.  I let it slide, and tried to find a company on my own, but soon realized it would take me a long time to go through all the other companies and their choices, and gave up and went back to Harland-Clarke, through BS&L.  Then, the horrible mass shooting/murders in South Carolina happened, and the nation focused on the issue of the flag.  I decided I could not sit by any longer. 

As part of a fundraiser for Neighborhood School house, my wife is going up to the Canadian border and riding all the way back home. The fundraiser iwill help raise money to provide scholarships to the Neighborhod School House, based on financial need.

 Anything helps. We mean, anything helps. It’s about 200 miles. At a penny a mile, that would only be $2.00. Go for a nickel a mile, and that’s $10. 

Greetings! Below are the notes from the April 30th community conversation addressing homelessness. Thank you all for attending and continuing your efforts to address homelessness in our community.

For more information, contact:  info@morningsideshelter.org

Please share these notes with others as you see fit. Hard copies will also be left at the  by Monday, May 11.

Cheers!

Chad

From a close friend who has lived in Kathmandu for years. One problem with Nepalese relief is that there is substantial graft and one must be very careful about who one donates through. I just received this and want to pass it along. 

Besides Pachak Rinpoche’s relief fund ( Chokgyur Lingpa Foundation), here is another one where the money will go to relief and not to admin. costs. Friend, Chris Kolisch, has written below about a good place to donate for disaster relief here in Nepal:

     May Day at the Statehouse!   For a number of years now there has been an ever-growing public event celebrating May Day on the Statehouse lawn.  I went last year and was among 600 or so people having a very stimulating day. This year more than a thousand are expected.   Everyone is invited and urged to join in.  There is a big parade through the streets of Montpelier, speakers, a childrens tent, free lunch for all and a long line of organizations that are actively working and fighting for a just and sustainable future for Vermont.  It’s the largest annual gathering of activists in the state.  And its a lot of fun.  Activities run from noon to 4 PM.  Its a great place to meet people who are doing things.

Greetings!

On April 3rd, a second in a series of community discussions regarding a community response to homelessness took place at the  in Brattleboro. Attached are the notes from the evening, including several themes and action steps. The notes are also available in hard copy at the . Please share widely.

The next community forum is scheduled for Thursday, April 30th from 5:30-7:30pm at the , 118 Main St. Brattleboro. All are welcome. Details to follow.

BRATTLEBORO – On Friday, May 29 the Brattleboro Area Drop-In Center and Morningside Shelter will host the third annual Camp for a Common Cause on the Brattleboro Common. The collaborative fund- and awareness-raising event has been a great success for the last two years, raising nearly $10,000 in 2013 and nearly $9,000 in 2014. All funds raised are evenly split between the two organizations, both of which work to alleviate homelessness in the greater Brattleboro area.

“We couldn’t believe the success of last year’s campout!” said Lucie Fortier, Executive Director of the Brattleboro Area Drop-In Center; “people kept coming out in the rain to join us for the barbecue and live concert. Everyone had a great time despite the weather, which only made the campout all the more poignant.”

Brattleboro, VT—On Sunday, May 3, starting at 3 p.m., people will be jumping from a boat into the chilly water of the West River to benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters, doing their part for The Marina Restaurant‘s Plunge for Charity.

The inspiration for The Marina Plunge, now celebrating its 10th Anniversary, came in 2003 when several Marina employees jumped into the river to celebrate a birthday. The following year they decided to make it an annual event for charity.

That year, a handful of individuals were thrilled to raise $1,500 for The Gathering Place, an adult day care center. Since then, the event has seen steady growth, according to founder and organizer Deirdre “Dee” Baker of Brattleboro.

Get on Board Windham County will be hosting its first-ever Meet Your Match event, a community volunteer fair specifically geared towards matching potential board members with nonprofits.

Windham County nonprofits are invited to sign up to have a table at the event. The cost is $35, and registration for nonprofits will close on April 27. Nonprofits should register at http://bit.ly/Board-Match.

Many local nonprofits are seeking to expand and diversify their boards. This event will afford them the opportunity to pitch volunteer service on their board to dedicated and skilled community members. In attendance will be the 2015 cohort of Get on Board Windham County Board Fellows, a group of young professionals who have completed a 20-hour board training course.

On May 9th, 2015, Putney School students will be hired out into the community to work for a charitable cause. We want you to help!

People from the greater Putney-Brattleboro community can hire students to do yard or housework for $8 an hour, for up to five hours, on Saturday, May 9th. The proceeds from our labor will then go to the Morningside Shelter .

The Morningside Shelter is a local organization dedicated to providing a safe space and ongoing support to families and individuals facing challenges of maintaining stable housing down in Brattleboro. As the only year-round homeless shelter in southeastern Vermont, the Morningside Shelter’s services are in high demand.

NORTON, Mass.—Marguerite Dooley ’15, a senior at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. and a native of Brattleboro, Vt., has won a prestigious Projects for Peace grant to open a program for homeless and at-risk youth in her hometown.

Projects for Peace grants provide undergraduates at American colleges and universities with $10,000 each to implement projects that seek to promote peace, resolve conflict and build understanding.

Brattleboro Senior Meals Celebrates March for Meals

Brattleboro Senior Meals joins with the Meals on Wheels Association of America to celebrate March for Meals.  The month of March mobilizes hundreds of local Meals on Wheels programs across the country to reach out to their communities and build support that will sustain them all year long.

His Governor is considering clemency

Seems too obvious not to pass on.

It is extremely hard to find 100,000 people to sign a White House “We the People” petition, in order to qualify for an Official White House response.   There have been a lot of marijuana, cannabis, hemp, and medical marijuana White House petitions.   None of them have received the response the petitioners want to hear, so we all just keep filing more petitions, hoping that attitudes up on The Hill will change.  This new 2015 Make Marijuana Legal! petition is really dragging its feet, averaging only 100 signatures a day.  This petition needs help!

There have been so many marijuana legalization petitions at the White House, and none have succeeded in the ultimate objective, so it is important to keep signing more peititions.   The squeaky wheel is the one that gets greased; right?