 |
www.hopedance.org
|
| <back | home SHORTS IPC7 - The 7th International Permaculture Convergence After almost ten-years’ pause, we are now preparing for the next International Permaculture Convergence, to be held in May and June 2005. ‘We’ are, in this case, the Danish Permaculture Association in cooperation with the Croatian and Slovenian Permaculture associations and groups. We have been preparing for this event since 2001, and it promises to be of great value and inspiration for the international PC network. After ten years there will be lots to talk about, new contacts to be made, old friendships to be reenlivened, networks to be created, and a mountain of experiences to be exchanged. The IPCs usually take up discussions around course curriculums, diplomas, network building, communication, new PC concepts, new techniques, etc. David Holmgren and Max Lindegger will be among the speakers and workshop leaders, and we have invited Bill Mollison to open the Convergence, if his health will allow. The Convergence will take place in a very beautiful, medieval town in Croatia with high-quality facilities. Enrollment requires prepayment of 50 Euro per event before the end of this year (2004). In case we receive less than 15 enrollments for the course, and 30 for the tour, these will be cancelled. For further information about IPC7 please contact: The Permaculture Institute of Europe c/o PERMAKULTUR DANMARK Istedgade 79 1650 København V Denmark (DK) Tlf: +45 3331 5694 - Fax: +45 3325 7179 Email: vestergror@dk-online.dk www.ipc7.org Fruit Trees For Schools Tours http://www.commonvision.org/ , Feb 21-April 15, San Diego-Eureka CA By getting students and their teachers in touch with the Earth by planting fruit trees, we create a catalyst to transform the schools in California into physical models of sustainability. Fruit trees begin to help transform a social paradigm of scarcity to abundance. Next to water, fruit trees are the first step to creating a more sustainable world. Common Vision is creating a network of schools that will lead the country into designing holistic living systems. Each time we return to a site we take physical steps towards this goal by adding a new element to make a more functional system of self sufficiency. For example, some elements of such a system are closed loop water systems to irrigate the orchards, building earthen benches and classroom additions, installing photo voltaic solar panels for electricity, solar hot water panels, and on-site compost. The vision comes to maturity when schools become models of sustainability, because then they are ready to be propagation centers for food forest corridors and community retrofitting. As schools mature in this design, education in these schools will also mature in a way that embodies the ethics and services of stewardship. This way, students grow their connection to the environment, the community they live in, and their sense of ownership of these things, which will enable good decision making for people everywhere as a whole. Food forest corridors are non-motorized pathways that connect residential and business areas by edible landscape. These lands, owned by the municipal park systems, are developed and maintained by the school system. In Portland, Oregon, CITY REPAIR is a project that has been germinating a way for people and schools to be involved with localizing, community building, and retrofitting the physical urban environment. City Repair provides a good model for California to adopt [see their ad on p.2 of print version of HopeDance]. Common Visions’ staff are experienced service learning facilitators. We continue to develop our program so that students and their teachers are involved in any installation of system elements we implement. Volunteers for the spring season receive organic meals for their participation. Aside from your monetary donations, we need: Regional Coordinator Press Release / Media organizers Grant Writers / Fund Raisers Tour poster designer Curriculum developers Biofuel organizer Drivers Contact Blair Philips at stillwater@commonvision.org, or Deanna Moore at jodi@commonvision.org HealthyHomesForSale.com Looking for a green or healthy home to buy? Have a green or healthy home that you want to sell to someone who understands the love and care you have lavished on your home and will appreciate your efforts? WWW.HealthyHomesForSale.com is the place for you. HealthyHomesForSale.com is the new Internet resource for buying or selling green or healthy homes. Eco homes, when properly marketed, can bring a well-deserved price premium. Often real estate agents do not understand the benefits and values a specialty green or healthy home has to offer and will underprice the property to match area comps. A site like HealthyHomesForSale.com can assist a home seller to get an appropriate price for the property. People have lavished their hearts and souls in building eco homes and often want to be sure that their beloved homes go to others who will appreciate the spirit of what they have created. Certainly those who have healthy homes understand the necessity of such a home and want to be sure that others with environmental sensitivities can also benefit from a toxin-free environment. The new site has over 50 homes from three countries; yes, even Australia and Canada, in addition to many wonderful homes in America. While the site is building up inventory, anyone, a private party or real estate professional, can list a home for free. If you are looking to buy a green or healthy home you can contact the owners of any of the listed homes directly by e-mail or phone at no charge directly from information found in the home listing. Sustainable Development Advocates "A BETTER FUTURE" (http://www.abetterfuture.org)" is a public communication campaign to raise public awareness and promote societal movement toward more sustainable lifestyles. Helping the public from all walks of life better appreciate the scientific issues that underlie progress on global sustainability is at the heart of this campaign. The many resources and identified organizations on the web site will assist you in developing mutual understanding and collective action that can create a better future for all. The goals of "A Better Future" include: · To increase awareness of sustainable development issues with the public. · To increase the societal health/quality of life literacy of the public. · To scientifically inform the public about the interdependencies between environmental, economic, and social equity concerns in their lives. · To influence grassroots change in social behavior that will lead to a more sustainable society world-wide. This site offers a portal to information you will need in order to recognize the many connected issues in our world and how the kinds of choices we make based upon this understanding will affect the consequences of our actions (the 3 Cs). All Round Magazine All Round is a stunning magazine for children that champions people of all ages who love Earth. It explores the intricate nature of the universe with the aim of sparking the joy of living and learning in readers. Theme issues cover subjects like Trees, Flying, Shelter, Being Born and Animal Communication. Full color, lavishly hand-illustrated, and filled with well-researched and unusual facts, stories, experiments, comics, games, letters and activities, All Round uses every square inch of each page to its fullest capacity. Readers travel the skies with Jakes, her little brother Dustin, and their parents in a rambling farmhouse that floats around the world at cloud level, stopping for adventures on firm ground below. All Round sets itself apart by the way it looks and in its presentation. Imagine a magazine for kids that is without a trace of condescension, never preachy or political, completely ad-free, printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, and that supports sustainability on the planet, equality for all people and the continual triumph of imagination and wonder. That’s All Round. The "Inventing" issue also offered a simple and satisfying answer to the question, "What does sustainable mean?" and included information on kid inventors, an inventing game and a detailed reference page packed with ideas for more ways to learn about the subject. All Round is recommended for children of all ages and especially for children 6-11. It’s definitely engaging enough to hold the parents’ interest, too, if they read to or with their younger kids. CONTACT: All Round Magazine (888) 669-6991 www.allroundmagazine.com Continental Congress Convenes in the Blue Ridge Eco-activists and cultural visionaries from all over the continent will gather in the Katúah Province of North Carolina July 9-17, 2005 for the 9th Bioregional Congress of the northern Americas. Committed to transforming the human relationship to nature toward greater justice, harmony, and fullness of life, over 250 scientists, artists, farmers, government officials, business leaders, clergy, and students from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico are expected to converge on Earthaven Ecovillage near Black Mountain. Since the first Congress in 1984, hundreds of creative talents, veteran social change agents, and earnest environmentalists have been pioneering life ways and cultural technologies to restore the earth and champion local communities. Tapping deep wellsprings in the human heart, the body of knowledge developed collectively and held by the Congresses is now formidable: The Bioregional palette includes powerful tools for deepening democracy, reinvigorating local economies and communities, nurturing wildness in the land, and expressing the noblest passions of our common life. The special focus of this event will be to create an integrated "tool kit" with which local bioregional organizers may galvanize their home places toward social and ecological regeneration. The Congress will be hosted by Earthaven Ecovillage, a ten-year-old intentional community and one of the first permaculture-designed villages in North America. This will be the first time a Congress has been held in the Southeast. In choosing Earthaven as the site for CBC-IX, the organizers selected a setting that already embodies many of these characteristics and promises to provide one of the most advanced platforms yet encountered by the movement. Located off grid in a once abandoned farming valley southeast of Asheville, Earthaven is famous for its many excellent examples of natural building, as well as demonstrations of biological waste treatment, sustainable forestry, cooperative local business, renewable energy, and organic food polyculture. For information visit www.biocongress2005.org or write CBC-9, Earthaven Ecovillage, 1025 Camp Elliott Rd., Black Mountain, NC 28711 [see the story about Earthaven in this issue of HopeDance]. A short short by Margaret Morris El Norte 2010 By day, her room held a finite emptiness within its four walls. At night, the walls dissolved and the darkness opened to infinity. If she remained still, dancing pinpoints of lights would inhabit the empty space and a rushing sound would fill up the silence — the sound of air particles moving against her ears, she had been told. And if she remained still even longer, sleep would come and dreams of home. In her dreams, she walked the chaparral-covered hills above her old home, smelling again the resinous fragrance of sage. The sky always blazed intense azure, and the air felt warm. She sensed but did not see the presence of someone hiking with her — perhaps Clara, her daughter, when Clara was much younger and not herself a mother; or perhaps her husband, Paco, as he used to be, full of energy and a masculine mischief, throwing lavender sage blossoms in her hair. She would awaken then, choking on her grief. A pale daylight sifting through the window shade at a lower angle than at home reminded her immediately of her environs in someone else’s home, in a northern land where the sky never lacked clouds and the rains never left. That Tuesday, she arose from the narrow guest room bed and dressed hurriedly. A splash of cold water from the lavatory in the adjoining bathroom served both to shock away her grief and wash away any saliva that may have adhered during sleep. Cold water, she thought, a cheap mood altering drug, something to make her a fit employee for the family that had hired her. I am a housekeeper, she told her reflection in the bathroom mirror, smiling slightly, but I could not keep my own house. Her old house had to be worth, well, maybe half a million now. Still, it was the least of what she had forfeited by leaving her country. When the Neelys came to breakfast an hour later, the aromas of bacon and coffee filled the kitchen. Mrs. Neely looked surprised once again to find the toast toasted and the coffee brewed and the breakfast orders, taken the night before, executed as though she had not hired a housekeeper for the express purpose of working as one. Mrs. Neely always seemed half in denial of her housekeeper’s status in the household. ("Call me, Sandra, please, and I’ll call you Rosa, if I may.") "Oh, my, how nice this is," Sandra said, looking at the table laid out. "I could get quite used to this." Her husband, Alan, already at the table, smiled indulgently. "Let’s hope Rosa gets her political refugee status then, so that you can." Rosa knew that Mr. Neely did not entirely approve of the arrangement. She recalled the hiring interview with him. "What evidence does the government have that you aren’t here just for economic reasons?" he had asked her. Her face no doubt had reflected her puzzlement. Didn’t he read the paper? Couldn’t he figure it out himself? He let an impatient sigh escape. "Rosa, look, in your country, jobs are like hen’s teeth, and what’s available pays peanuts, and the situation doesn’t look to improve. I understand your coming here for work. In your place, I’d do the same. But I keep thinking of the cost to us taxpayers of all the illegal immigrants. You folks are straining our social services." "My husband was killed by the police during a demonstration," she had responded. "People fighting against the regime are imprisoned without trial for indeterminate sentences. If I stayed I would have been imprisoned. I have a daughter and grandchildren I may never see again. I owned my own home, which was forfeited when I applied for asylum." She had begun to weep at that point and could not speak clearly. "I love my country and would have stayed if I could but..." "But had you no recourse? What about the laws, the courts...?" "The courts are packed, the elections are rigged, the newspapers corrupt..." She shrugged her hopelessness. "Oh, Al," Sandra had intervened then, "let’s keep her. She can’t go back. You can see that!" Alan Neely shrugged his acquiescence. "It’s on your head, Sandra. I give up." He’d turned to Rosa then. "Taking in all you Yanks is likely to cause us Canadians some problems, you know." Not happiness, but relief came from the grudging acceptance — too many losses. Apollo Alliance Continually check in with what Apollo Alliance is doing. Here is an update: 10 point plan http://tinyurl.com/7xcpk Ad placed in NY Times http://tinyurl.com/5tn7y Governors Protest, Opposing Bush’s Energy Plan http://www.apolloalliance.org/gov.cfm Sign Petition http://action.apolloalliance.org/petition/ Join http://action.apolloalliance.org/join/ THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS WISH TO APOLOGIZE http://sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/ I first heard about this site a couple of weeks ago when I got an email that said, "1000s of Americans wish the rest of the world to know they are sorry. Many of them have taken photographs of themselves while holding words of apology before their cameras. Click on the following link to look at some of the 425 pages of portraits. (There are about ten photographs per page.) "Copy and paste this message into a distribution list and pass it on, all around the planet, so their apology is heard in every land." We have so much to apologize for — the torture, the invasions, the imperialism, our economic policies — I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I soon discovered that the site is mainly set up so that Americans who feel so moved can apologize for our country’s reelection of George W. Bush. Some of the pix are really funny, some are touching, and it’s amazing to just see the numbers of Americans who wanted to reach out to the world in this way. There are guidelines for those who want to add their photos; the number is up to about 6,500 now, and the organizers of the page say that there’s quite a backlog, because they are receiving so many submissions. (My sister and I sent one in that we took on Thanksgiving, and we haven’t seen it up there yet.) All in all, this is one of those fabulous grassroots sites that spring up on the internet that help to make the world a smaller and more caring place. Enjoy the variety and creativity in the messages. Some notes on biodiesel Conservation of energy is a great way to reduce our dependence on petroleum, coal, natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable energy. Riding a bicycle, or an electric bike, is generally a better and more efficient way to move a human, when compared with driving a 4000-pound vehicle. Not only will you use less energy and resources, you will be healthier, happier, and have polluted much less. When possible, walking or riding a bike is more efficient and sustainable. Biodiesel will not cure our car culture, but it does allow us to use cars that run on the solar energy gathered in plants which are pressed for oils that are processed into fuel. The US Department of Energy says that we get 3.2 units of energy out for every unit of energy used to grow, harvest, process, and produce soy-based biodiesel. Other crops and recycled oils could yield much greater energy gains. This means that we can efficiently harvest solar energy in plants to use as fuel. Replacing all of the fuel used in the US with biodiesel would be a daunting challenge. We collectively use so much fuel, it would be nearly impossible to replace it all, especially in a short time span. We can and do replace a portion of the petroleum used with biodiesel, and that portion grows every year. Biodiesel is not a cure-all. It is one tool of many that can lead us to a brighter, sustainable future. Luke Politte, Vice President AgriFuels LLC (805) 995-1972 lukepolitte@agrifuels.com Choose the blue http://choosetheblue.com When I first got an email about this site, I almost didn’t check it out. The description said, "This site lists and recommends companies that support Democrats. They say if we spend only $500 in 2005 on goods or services from a blue company instead of a red one, that will be noticed. Show your politics where it really counts - in the market place." The message to choose blue instead of red companies didn’t appeal to me at first, as I am a Green and only chose blue (Democratic) in this past election as the lesser of two evils, as so many of us did. But I decided to peek at the site, and I loved the perspective and specific information it gave me. I went from graph to graph, investigating the political contributions of hundreds of well-known companies. So maybe we aren’t evolved enough yet to have big business donate to Greens, or maybe we don’t even want their money, but in the system we do have now, business does donate to political parties; and I found it enlightening to realize who gives to whom and how much. Companies are listed by general categories (consumer electronics, restaurants and bars, groceries, for example) and then broken down into more specific categories (computer hardware, software, internet, hifi/stereo/tv/cameras). Then the political contributions of different companies are shown in percentages to which of the major parties and the actual figures. Is this the only information I need to decide where to buy and from whom? No, but it’s helpful. I like knowing that IBM and Microsoft gave 70 percent and 61 percent of their contributions to Democrats, although that doesn’t change what I’ve heard about IBM’s involvement in German concentration camps during WW2. I was impressed that Costco Companies gave 98 percent to Democrats (Wal-Mart gave 81 percent to Republicans), although Costco is still a ‘big box’ store that has helped to shut down local economies in parts of the US, as well as in the third world. But I’m glad I was introduced to the site and that this information is available to us, the general public. I’m not sure of the source of the information, though, and can only assume it is correct. So, if you buy from big companies and you’re inclined to buy blue, here is a way to get the info you need. -Barbara Wishingrad City Repair Los Angeles We started a City Repair Los Angeles list to use for brainstorming, dialogue, organizing events and work parties, sharing resources, etc. Everyone who attended Mark Lakeman’s workshops last month throughout California has been invited, but it’s open to all interested in City-Repair-type projects. If you’d like to join, just click on the subscription link: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cityrepairla [See big ad in the print issue of HopeDance about their very cool 10 day event in Portland!] Community Television the Goal From The Channel 2 Six O’clock News, Ron & Leslie Bearce, Producers and Hosts After volunteering for local public television since 1985, Ron and Leslie Bearce invite county community groups to become a bigger part of Charter Channel 2 public television. Local residents can learn to produce segments for local shows or just appear on local cable without charge. Some Channel 2 producers charge a few thousand dollars a year to as much as $40,000 yearly for this service. They co-produce Channel 2’s Proyecto Unido for free with Latino producers. It airs for half an hour Friday nights at 9:30 p.m., and Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10:00 a.m. "The Channel 2 Six O’clock News Live" airs Wednesdays from 6:00-7:00 p.m., and Thursdays and Fridays from 6:00-6:30 p.m. They produce regular programming at their expense for Alpha Pregnancy Counseling, environmental groups, the Young Democrats, the Progressive Student Alliance, College Republicans, local Democratic and Republican Parties, the Green Party and dozens of other nonprofit groups. "We’ve put 500 to 1000 members of the public onto Public Access in the last three years and want to more than double that in the next two years," says Ron Bearce. "Our motto is, ‘It’s your Channel 2. And it’s your channel, too!’" Contact us at LeslieB930@aol.com or phone 544-7060. Or write Leslie Bearce, Channel 2 News, 270 Bridge Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. [Ron will be on the panel during the Independent Media Film Festival.] Enviros, Builders, Habitat, Builder’s Exchange and others collaborating for Green Buildings? Yes! Green Horizon by Mikel Robertson The construction industry on the Central Coast is approaching a new horizon, a Green horizon. The past few years have been great for architects and contractors. New home building is up in San Luis Obispo County, and workers in the industry have found their pockets lined with gold. I recently talked to a developer who told me that it does not matter what he builds, referring to my suggestions for improved indoor air quality in his future development. The value of the land and the community on the Central Coast create an attitude of "If I build it, they will buy it." He has no incentive to build more energy-efficient homes to save future homeowners on monthly utility bills, or healthier homes with better indoor air quality, free of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and formaldehyde. We find ourselves stuck between the public’s demands for no growth or slow growth and development of the cheapest homes possible because land is so expensive builders have no other options. Are these our only choices? The answer is no. A coalition of diverse groups, including Women in Construction, Home Builder’s Association, Builder’s Exchange, Habitat for Humanity, IWMA, Utilities Department, Public Works, County/City Building and Planning Departments, Sustainable Builders Council, ECOSLO, Department of Environmental Affairs and private architects, contractors and engineers, has formed to address issues of sustainable development and green building in SLO County. This diversity allows for greater credibility in the program, as well as a range of resources for handling problems that historically have been dealt with separately. The program is being developed in two teams. One is the cost/benefit checklist and incentive team, and the other is the sponsorship, education and public relations team. The cost/benefit team, working with the county Building and Planning Department, is creating green building guidelines that provide cost-effective suggestions to increase a home’s energy efficiency and to create a healthier indoor environment while conserving natural resources. This includes water conservation techniques and solid waste management. Together, the homeowner, architect and contractor can review proper methods and materials in order of design: site, foundation, structural frame, exterior finish, plumbing and electrical, roofing, appliances, insulation, windows, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), renewable and solar energy, indoor air quality and finishes. Each green item has a numerical value which can be added up to a set target level that has coinciding incentives. Some incentives being discussed include expedited plan check, reduction in permit costs, and public acknowledgment of construction professionals who implement environmentally friendly building practices. The sponsorship, education and public relations task force has partnered with ECOSLO, a local environmental nonprofit, and is busy developing a website that will contain the green guidelines, provide announcements for events, training and educational opportunities, and highlight our sponsors and green professionals in the building industry. Our goal is to donate literature to the county library system, hold educational workshops geared toward homeowners and trade professionals, put on community events and hold an annual parade of green buildings. As interest and demand increase for green building, we want to acknowledge and promote existing green-builder practices and encourage new directions. We want to create new market demand for environmentally friendly building practices, help facilitate continual education and public discussion and, most importantly, enjoy a healthier planet and home. We welcome new partners. If you feel that you, your company or association can play a part, please contact us. Our invitation extends to the entire community. Ask your contractors and design professionals about green building. Contact your local government. Sensible, economical avenues for building healthier homes that reduce utility costs and protect our environment do exist. By taking these first steps, we commit ourselves to continual progress towards ecological living. Save Mother Earth! Dear POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy) Supporters Democracy School, created by Richard Grossman, POCLAD co-founder, and Thomas Linzey, founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Pennsylvania, is finishing its second year. To date, most of these intensive weekend trainings in rights-based activism have been held at Wilson College in Chambersburg, PA. However, they are spreading around the country, and people are being trained to staff them. This past year, three have been held at Boston College, sponsored by Massachusetts’ Center for Democracy and the Constitution (CDC). Visit www.constitution411.org/natl_dem_schl/main/schedule_ds.html to see if one is coming to your area in 2005. If you want information on bringing Democracy School to your community, contact Stacey Schmader at 717-709-0457. Radiation blocker for cell phones I recently purchased a radiation blocker headset for my cell phone. A radiation shield is available for the phone itself, if you don’t use a headset. I had not focused on this issue until I saw the units available at my local health food market and did some research. I think WAVESHIELD is the only one to offer this radiation blocker. Check out these websites: www.waveshield.com , www.cprnews.com Save San Luis Obispo — UPDATE As you may have heard, the grassroots citizen’s group, Save San Luis Obispo succeeded in its initial goal of gathering over 14,000 signatures on three petitions to require the City of San Luis Obispo to hold a referendum on Bill Bird’s San Luis Marketplace mall, located on the Dalidio property on Madonna Road. The special election to reverse the City’s approval of the project will be held April 26, 2005. (NO on ABC!) Save San Luis Obispo is gearing up to launch a vigorous campaign. There is mounting public opposition to the project from neighborhood advocates, students, business and property owners, fans of our award-winning Downtown, community leaders, and last but not least, environmentalists. The local chapter of the Sierra Club and the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo (ECOSLO) have both taken positions against it. It will be a hard-fought battle. The L.A. developers and their Texas financiers have a lot more money than we do, do not care about our community and have hired a fancy PR firm that represented Wal-Mart in other campaigns. They also have sued the City and Save San Luis Obispo in an attempt to derail the election. To defend us, we have hired Jonathan Wittwer from Santa Cruz, an attorney who is a specialist in election law. We are confident that we will prevail. Obviously, the lawsuit puts us under additional financial pressure (as it was intended to do). Now, we must not only raise money to run the campaign, but also to defend the lawsuit. To win, we will need your help. What is wrong with the Marketplace? For starters, it is way too big and ugly. This 615,000 square foot ‘Power Center’ is so large that it will add more retail space than currently exists in our Downtown. It will generate more than 20,000 additional daily trips by car, creating gridlock and smog. It will require an otherwise unnecessary new freeway Interchange at Prado Road to handle just a small portion of the additional traffic it will generate. Instead of a lovely view of prime agricultural land and the Morros at the entrance of the City, visitors will be ‘welcomed’ by the sight of generic sprawl-mart at its worst. It also is a bad financial deal for the City. Amazingly, the City has agreed to pay for most of the costs associated with the Interchange and related improvements, either directly or by giving away an estimated $750,000 in sales taxes every year for 30 years to the developer. Between the unprecedented sales tax subsidy to the developer and the City’s share of the Prado Interchange and related expenses, this project will drain almost $46 million from City coffers. As a result, SLO will be left with significant long-term financial commitments limiting its ability to eliminate existing traffic bottlenecks or unsafe intersections and to provide adequate services for our seniors and maintain high quality police and fire protection. The Marketplace will have at least seven significant, unavoidable environmental impacts, including severe traffic congestion and degradation of air quality, especially in surrounding neighborhoods. The EIR is so flawed that its sufficiency has been challenged in court by another citizen’s group, Citizens for Planning Responsibly, and Cal Trans may require a whole new EIR before approving the Interchange. Also, it simply does not address many of the impacts of the Interchange, such as increased flooding over the freeway and the possible need to widen or channel San Luis Creek on the east side of 101. To win this fight, Save San Luis Obispo needs your financial help right now. Please go to our website, savesanluisobispo.org and click on ‘click here’ for a printable contribution form Then, print it out, fill it out and send it with your (hopefully generous) check to Save San Luis Obispo, P.O. Box 4312, San Luis Obispo CA 93403-4312. You do not need to live in the City of San Luis Obispo to contribute, and there are no campaign expenditure limits on ballot measures. No contribution is too large or too small. Thanks so much for anything you can give. [See the ad with the form in the print issue.] Separation of Church and State Kathleen Wafer, President, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, San Luis Obispo Chapter The constitution mandates it. Most Americans believe in it. But today it is under threat as never before. Powerful religious leaders and misguided politicians have joined forces to undercut the First Amendment. Since 1947, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has worked to protect the constitutional principle of church-state separation, a vital cornerstone of religious liberty. Americans of many faiths and political viewpoints, individuals from all walks of life, have come together to defend our freedoms. From funding of faith-based initiatives to religious organizations in place of what were once government- provided programs, proposals for mandatory prayer in public schools, to government intrusion into religious affairs, the First Amendment is under siege by the radical religious right. The wall of separation between church and state is being chipped away one brick at a time. Americans United, with more than 50,000 members, stands as one of the most respected and trusted organizations working to preserve this nation’s heritage of freedom. There are chapters in over half of our 50 states. A chapter is being formed in SLO County. We hope to provide a viable alternative to the radical religious right’s rhetoric. Our chapter’s charter is to be a watchdog group in the fight for religious freedom. If you would like information on our chapter or Americans United please email us at: auslo@charter.net. We are here to educate, advise and assist with all issues of church-state separation. Every Thursday, we will be at Farmers Market in San Luis Obispo. Look for us in front of Central Coast Surfboards. Each month for the next year we plan to offer educational forums to the public. On January 26th, Harry Schwartzbart, chapter president from the San Fernando Valley, will be here to talk about our courts. He will discuss the history of our judicial system, as well as what we might expect in the next four years. In February we plan to have a forum with Bill Lakin, a member of Americans United National Advisory Council, as well as other guests who will discuss school vouchers. This meeting will take place on February 23rd at 7:00 p.m. in the SLO Library community room. Take a moment to look us up our national website www.au.org. Attend our next forum on January 26th at 7:00 p.m. in the SLO Library community room. Visit us at Farmers Market. We welcome your involvement. [See their ad in the print issue.] Central Coast Village Center The Central Coast Village Center (CCVC) officially opened its doors in October of 2004 at the old Pacheco Elementary building located at 165 Grand Avenue, Room 11, in San Luis Obispo, California. The CCVC is a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization dedicated to building a strong community of children, families and adults through nature-based and alternative educational programs. We believe that "it takes a village to raise a child." We also believe that a healthy rich connection to the natural world can create a deeper understanding of self, community and life in general. By developing a personal relationship with nature, one’s level of general awareness increases and makes learning on every other level efficient and lifelong. The village center has typically always been a meeting and gathering place for the community to make decisions and come together for celebrations. Thus, our Village Center has two meanings; it is the children among us - our children and others’ children - and it’s an actual place to meet, learn, share, and celebrate each other’s gifts and life. The CCVC began with the coming together of minds, a small ‘community’ of folks with similar observations and visions. We offer an environment that makes asking the questions just the beginning of a beautiful journey of learning. Through the art of mentoring, we work to create a burning desire within students to find their own answers while guiding them into an explorative journey. The journey to the answer is often full of new awareness where more and more questions are created and more and more answers are sought. We offer educational programs for youth (home-school, after-school and summer camps) and adults; weekends and evenings. Our youth programs are designed to instill the culture in our children and a love of learning and a passion for living. Our adult programs teach and train caregivers what this culture is, how to support it, and how beneficial it is to raise children in it, now and for the future. We know and believe that something about spending a lot of time in nature is soothing to the human spirit; and that, in essence, shows us how to be humans. We are passionate about children, families, community and the natural world. We wish to preserve these in ways that create whole persons whose inherent natural gifts will be not only honored now but also remembered for generations. For more information about the CCVC or it’s programs visit our website at www.centralcoastvillagecenter.org or call 805-541-9900. For upcoming events at the CCVC, contact: Kathleen Guillermo 215-9416 Kathleen@centralcoastvillagecenter.org or Dave Wilson 423-3288, Dave@centralcoastvillagecenter.org [See their ad in the print issue.] <back | top^ |