Antidote to being pulled down by the 2016 political campaigns: Reach out!

Last year a friend asked me whether I knew of any volunteer opportunities in the East Bay, a question that I was delighted to hear!  I compiled a list for her of some of the opportunities of which I was aware, sent it to her, and planned to post it here, but never got around to it.  Then a couple of weeks ago this same topic came up in conversation with another friend, and I promised to send my list from last year...but of course, when I took a look at the list, I figured it could be improved upon, so I spent an afternoon -- interestingly enough, it was an afternoon when I was supposed to go to a Volunteer Appreciation Party -- revising and updating the list*.  And here it is:

Elizabeth House  Provides services and shelter to women in difficult situations... (located next to St Augustine's in what I think is the former convent.)  There are a variety of opportunities here.

Berkeley Food and Housing Project  Among other things, they have a Women's Center that serves homeless women and families and women with disabilities through a temporary shelter, transitional housing and other services.

Night on the Streets Catholic Worker -- lots of services (click here for a comprehensive list) for the neediest residents of the East Bay, especially around Berkeley.  [I have worked with the Sunday morning breakfast for the homeless (starts at 7:15 am in People's Park every Sunday) and the soup and hot chocolate delivery which happens several nights each week in the winter months.  Contact JC Orton (info at link above) to get involved, or just show up on Sunday morning :-) ] 

Oakland Catholic Worker -- primarily serving the migrant community -- opportunities to tutor English and work with the clients in other ways and I don't know what all else-- they always need people to help!

International Rescue Committee  Oakland branch -- helps resettle refugees and provides other services for refugees

Planting Justice-- urban farming resource, food justice, etc., also teaches permaculture skills to local prisoners with the goal of hiring them when they are released and volunteers teach high school students about gardening and food justice issues... a very interesting grassroots group

St. Anthony Foundation in SF has a variety of ministries (meals, clothing, employment counseling, etc.) that always need volunteers.

SF Pathways to Citizenship Initiative

This organization holds workshops every few months, usually on a Saturday (but sometimes on Sunday) where people who are trying to become naturalized citizens can come and get help filling out their paperwork, talk to a lawyer, etc.  [I really enjoyed helping out at this.]

Bay Area Literacy looks like a great program -- I volunteered in a similar program in Charlotte, NC, and enjoyed the work very much.  (And I'm thinking this might be a good place for me to plug in to help someone with GED prep -- I promised a friend I would do this so I'd better make good on my promise...)

Also, here are some websites that have volunteer opportunities databases or lists:

• Volunteer Center for the East Bay; as an example, here are links from there to Education opportunities (I put in my zip code (94609) and a 10-mile radius) 
• Bay Area Volunteer information Center 
• Catholic Charities of the East Bay --  a couple of times a month they have a"Transforming Lives Tour" that gives comprehensive information about their projects and programs.

There is also a list of opportunities in and near Berkeley here.

*if you don't live in the Bay Area, I hope this list will give you some ideas about what you can do in your own community to reach out and get involved!

Vatican II -- a blog post of interest

For those of you who are interested in such things, here's a post that is intriguing.

Fighting Hunger and Poverty!

On Sunday, October 25, I will be walking in the Eastern York County Crop Hunger Walk. I support the Crop Walk particularly because 25% of the funds collected locally stay in the local community. In Rock Hill, clients of Pilgrim's Inn and other local agencies benefit from Crop Walk funds. Pilgrim's Inn is a local, grassroots organization that has developed programs to help women in crisis, assisting them in getting their lives on track as well as helping them through the crisis at hand with food, housing, counseling, and job training. Pilgrim's Inn is in the process of implementing the Rapid Rehousing program in Rock Hill, which is an innovative new program to help women to get into apartments and jobs without a lengthy stay in the emergency shelter.

Another portion of the funds are used worldwide in refugee resettlement and other programs working to alleviate hunger and poverty. One of the more attractive things about this organization is that they are a coalition of people of various faiths working together, regardless of differences in theology and so forth.

Please consider helping out financially, but if that is not something you are able to do at this time, please pray for the success of this year's Walk.

reviews of various things....

Just a quick list of reviews, w/ links:

Capitalism, A Love Story -- I saw this last Friday night with a good friend, and we both thought it was great! I highly recommend it. It made me think about things differently... plus parts of it were highly amusing. I came home and put some of Michael Moore's other flicks on my Netflix list. My friend recommends especially his non-documentary, Canadian Bacon.

This video, which James D. shared today on FB, is short but very cute -- and reminds us to take the stairs...

Still reading Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church's Betrayal of American Nuns, by Kenneth Briggs, which I highly recommend to anyone who is interested in recent Church history, social justice (inside the Catholic Church as well as in the wider American culture), women's issues, etc....

While searching for articles about Double Crossed, I found this article by Luke Timothy Johnson, whom I heard at the Kennedy Lecture at Charlotte's St. Peter's Catholic Church a few years ago. I haven't read the article yet but hope to go back to it soon and read the whole thing.

a week of respite

During this week off from medical appointments and other medically-related time constraints, Mom and I are relaxing a bit and catching up on things that we've gotten behind on in the past month or so of Mom's intense cancer treatments. So, I've been catching up on looking stuff up on the web. This morning I came across this article which gives me a lot of hope, not so much for the immediate future but for the long term. A breath of fresh air amidst the mainstream media glut of campaign "news", dire predictions of financial disaster, people hanging upside-down, and so on....

Going Green!

Check out Sally and Sadie's new book, Going Green! I am excited that this is finally in print, and hope that it will sell very well!!

A newsy week...

...but most of it is other people's news, so I'll keep mum for the time being and let them share it, or in other cases, just let the story unfold.

So in the meantime, I have a movie recommendation: The Painted Veil. I just watched it, and it is wonderful. The acting (mostly panned by Lawrence Toppman, but I'm not so choosy as he is, I guess), the story, the score, the cinematography -- all so well done, so rich. Those of you who speak French -- you would love this song that is in it near the end, and if/when you do see it, I wish you would tell me what the song is about.... I am very sad that I never learned French. The music reviewer linked above doesn't agree with me about this, but I thought the song very appropriate, and quite beautiful.

Another item of interest -- completely different topic: Kay McSpadden's latest column will resonate with those of you who are regular readers of this blog (well, as regular a reader as you can be when I'm such a sporadic writer!) Actually, it will resonate with anyone who is a regular reader of anything -- books, magazines, cereal boxes, billboards, whatever. Please consider her plea seriously and do what you can to help. My reading this column this evening came on the heels of reading an article I had clipped awhile ago about the alarming number of, and rise in, dropouts from high school and middle school. I believe there is a very close connection between the two issues of early reading experiences and students failing to complete their education. As many of you know, I am a strong supporter of homeschooling, but the reality is that the vast majority of the young people in this country do not have that option. So I believe that it is only right and just that we do whatever we can to improve the schools and enhance opportunities for students who are attending school. There is a lot of bad going on in education today, but there is a lot of good, also. Kay McSpadden is an example of the best of the teachers out there, and I believe she can help us all find ways to participate in improving the futures of schooled students. (She recently published her first book, Notes from a Classroom. I have it and started reading it just the other day...a great read!)

Okay, I know these are really two different blog posts, but I'm too tired to try to figure that out now. I've been battling the flu since Wednesday night and hope to get past it soon.

Update: I realized this morning (3/9) that there really is a connection between my two topics above: there is scene near the end of the movie, not really essential to the plot or anything, that has a bunch of Chinese orphans lining up and receiving a book each, one by one... I don't know why the director put that in there, but it did serve as a reminder to me that I wanted to write about the article by Kay McSpadden.

David Cay Johnston on Fresh Air

Just wanted to post the link above for anyone interested. I am not a die-hard Fresh Air fan, but this segment really struck a nerve -- very well done and a real eye opener. David Cay Johnston is the author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill) which sounds (from the interview) like something we all should read. What got my attention was they were talking about Cabela's, a huge store out in the middle of Nebraska... I've seen lots of signs for it when travelling in that area. For more, go listen to the interview.

I'll try to post again soon. I'm still writing Christmas cards and "treading water" in other respects.

Dead Man Walking

Just a quick post about tonight... Sr. Helen Prejean, the author of the book Dead Man Walking, has come to Winthrop University in Rock Hill. She was at Mass tonight and gave the homily, then after Mass a lot of us went to a reception for her followed by a preview of the play, Dead Man Walking. That's a story in itself, because the play was supposed to be held in the black box theater in Johnson Hall, but there was a fire there Friday so they had to move to a lecture hall in Rutledge. (Maybe Em can enlighten us on how difficult this may have been.) I talked with the set designer and the stage manager afterwards and they told us that the play is technologically heavy (did I say that right?) and not having their sound system at all really hurt tonight. The performance was still great, imho... The actors did a terrific job! And the stage manager was really on her toes :-)
After the play I overheard Sr Helen talking with the cast. She told them that acting was a very important vocation, that through their participation in drama they were open to new ways of looking at things, and they opened up their hearts to new ways of feeling. She was so affirming of these young actors, it was really terrific to be there and witness this. It was also touching to see her greet the actress who played the lead (i.e., Sr. Helen)with a big hug... she was just such a loving affirming person.
I get to go hear Sr. Helen speak tomorrow night at Winthrop -- a couple of my students jumped ship because of a CMS break. Yay! (She is also speaking Tuesday night at Davidson College -- fyi, in case anyone in the area is reading this...) This is all very challenging, but I feel like I need to understand this issue better. And it really isn't just one issue...

National Breastfeeding Week...

...in Britain! And why can't we do that here in the USA?! (Click on the title above for more info)

rain

Tonight it's been raining all evening, one of those steady rains that soaks the ground and helps to make this city such a lush and green environment...

As usual, it's also "raining" good news stories... this morning's Charlotte Talks was an excellent discussion about how people are working to effect change in the local public schools... I heard that there was going to be a segment this morning on NPR's Morning Edition about breastfeeding, but I haven't gone to their site and listened to it yet (I was tied up during M.E. time)... even the comedians on Fresh Air today were funny and interesting.
Anybody else out there heard any good radio lately??

speaking out against torture and war

Frs. John Dear, Steve Kelly, Louis Vitale and many, many others continue to speak out as Christians against the practice of torture and against the war and weapons of all sorts. Go to this site and read about their efforts to stop torture and war and to raise the consciousness of all about what is really going on in this country w.r.t. war, torture, weapons, etc. The lack of outcry about the inhumanity of all this is beyond comprehension.

More radio...

I caught the last part of this interview with Jonathan Cohn on yesterday's Fresh Air on the replay of the show last night. This was the clearest analysis of the problems with health care in this country that I have ever heard.

Room to Read

Just touching base briefly between trips... Tomorrow is the State Mathcounts Competition so I'll be heading up that way this afternoon, and I still have one client coming in less than 15 minutes so I'll have to make this short.

I've been reading Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, by John Wood -- a very exciting book! Please check out their website and give this wonderful cause some serious attention... If you are reading this blog, you are very privileged, not because my blog is so special, but because you had the opportunity to learn to read. This opportunity is denied to many millions of our planet's present inhabitants! For years I have been reading about how reducing illiteracy helps to solve a lot of other problems in poor countries, but I have never seen an organization until now that works so hard, with such great results, to eradicate illiteracy. Please let me know if you are interested in helping me to sponsor a school, a library, or a girl's scholarship. I am seriously considering making the effort to do this, hopefully with help from my friends, family, and clients. The only thing that remains is to figure out how to go about it -- I'm going to read the pertinent info on the Room to Read website as soon as I get back from Durham and hopefully that will get me started.

Grass-roots campaign to end genocide in Darfur

A ray of hope in the Darfur situation. Read this article!!!

Conflict resolution

Continuing the theme of this week (with the exception of the Fly Guy blip), I woke up early this morning thinking about conflict resolution, especially on an interpersonal level. This has been an interest of mine for a long time. I grew up with a not-very-healthy "non-exposure" to healthy marital conflict, and went into my marriage with the really odd idea that married couples, if the marriage is really good, don't ever fight or argue or experience any conflict. This notion didn't work too well for me. Thus began an interest in learning more about healthy conflict resolution w.r.t relationships. I can't say I've become an expert on the subject or anything, but I have read some enlightening works over the past few years. One of them is Words that Hurt, Words that Heal, by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, which came out awhile back but is still very relevant. The way we talk to and about one another really matters. This book was first brought to my attention by an FLT friend who told us about "National Speak No Evil Day." (She also told us about this resource.)

Deborah Tannen has made a career out of researching and teaching about the way people talk with one another. She has several relevant and accessible books on this topic. Her website also has references to a lot of articles and essays she has written on the same topics. (Hmmm, I'm thinking I need to read her latest book, You're Wearing That?! Here's a link to her conversation with Diane Rehm about the book. I love Diane Rehm's show...but that's a topic for another day.)

All of this can be extended to the wider view: how people -- politicians, interviewers and talk show hosts as well as individuals -- talk about one another in the public discourse, how leaders of one nation talk about other nations and their leaders...it all matters. I'm not saying no one should ever express anything but niceties to one another, what I'm after here is learning how to express ourselves and our feelings in ways that are constructive and building up or at the very least not destructive and hurtful. I'll be the first to admit that this is not easy, and I am not always able to pull it off, but it is still worth working on, on every level of discourse. Come to think of it, that includes how we talk to ourselves, our inner language: we can learn how not to be so self-critical. That's something I am actively working on, too. Which reminds me, I'd better go get on it!

Honoring MLK

I forgot to mention in my post yesterday, that we now have a street named in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., here in Charlotte. Also, here's a link to a local group that annually responds to the call to volunteer on MLK Day (and the rest of the year as well!); a link to its parent group; and another link to how this year's event went in Charlotte...

"I Have a Dream"

For this day that marks the anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., I wanted to do something special (hence the link above.) Please go listen to this speech, certainly one of the most important and moving speeches ever given in this country! And I'd like to issue a challenge to those of you who, like me, had to work today: think of a way to honor the memory of this great man, whether it be by prayer, or helping somebody out, or by spreading his message, or by making a donation to an appropriate non-profit organization in his memory (some examples below)...or all of the above. Each one of us can and does make a difference in the world every day; let's try to make it a positive difference!
The King Center
Network
Nonviolence International
Atlanta Women's Foundation
NC Peace and Justice Coalition

Other organizations that promote non-violence

more about Sister Simone

Today the Charlotte Observer published a column about Sister Simone Campbell's talk/workshop at St. Peter Catholic Church in downtown Charlotte last Saturday. (See my post entitled "Network" below, for more about Sister Simone.) This is a good author (Mary Curtis) and an informative though brief article. The link is here.