Thursday, April 29, 2010

Hot Lunch Hoedown feat. the Crux. May 15th- a benefit for IMPACT!

Hot Lunch Hoe-down- a benefit to send IMPACT! to the U.S. Social Forum!

SAVE THE DATE!
Saturday, May 15th, 6pm-4am
1251 Marian Way in Petaluma
come on out to a great benefit event to send young activists in IMPACT! to the U.S. Social Forum this summer in Detroit!

We are hosting our first ever Hot Lunch Hoe-down, at 1251 Marian Way aka "The Robin Hood", complete with food, drinks, live music, dancing, all to benefit a good cause. Please come support local food, local musicians, and local activists! Stay for dinner, or stay all night.

$5-$15 suggested donation at the door. (If you are only coming for the dinner, you do not have to pay at the door)

Here is the schedule:

6-8pm- Delicious home-cooked meal by chef Lindsey Patrick, featuring produce from the Robin Hood garden, and other local farms. You will have a choice of two or three items (menu to be announced shortly). We are asking $5 donation per plate.

8-11pm- Live music on the back patio, featuring
the Crux,
Waters,
the Little Lost Boys.

and to top it all off, DJ Broken Record will be rockin a dub-step set inside.

11pm-2am- Dance Party!

*if you are coming from out of town, let us know if you would like us to reserve sleeping space for you, either inside or outside in the tents.

This is a benefit to send young activists from IMPACT! to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit (www.ussf2010.org). Please RSVP so we have an idea of how much food to get.

IMPACT! is a Petaluma-based, youth-led activist organization. IMPACT! is a non-profit that works with the community to, among other things, host social events, activist trainings, support free tutoring, free legal clinics, and art workshops. for more info, check out www.impactpetaluma.org, or impactpetaluma.blogspot.com

Sunday, April 18, 2010

IMPACT! Steps It Up In March!

IMPACT! in March!

March was one of the busiest months in recent memory for the dedicated members of IMPACT! Here is a brief summary of what our members have been up to these last 31 days.

First off, we attended and/or organized 20 meetings, to support projects and organizations such as: Free Mind Media, MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan), the Peace and Justice Center, The Phoenix Theater Rooftop Garden, the Youth Organizing Institute, The Committee for Immigrants’ Rights of Sonoma County, the North Bay Sponsoring Committee, the Zero Campaign, the white anti-racist allies of Sonoma County, and of course, IMPACT!

We held two Womyn’s caucuses, for the young womyn of the group, as well as one Men’s allies caucus. We held four successful free art workshops at the Phoenix Theater. We held a people of color caucus, as well as two white anti-racist allies caucuses (one for IMPACT! members, and one that was open to all of Sonoma County activists and allies). We baked vegan treats to support the Zero Campaign’s (anti-sexual assault group) bake sale to raise funds for their upcoming “Take Back the Night” march in October, which will be protesting violence against women. We helped to plan a successful fundraiser for the local Needle Exchange, which brought in $1,300! Furthermore, we helped raise funds to support Free Mind Media, a local community center and infoshop in Santa Rosa.

We gave presentations to several high school and college classrooms, as well as to a group of Unitarian Universalists in Santa Rosa. We tabled at this year’s production of the Vagina Monologues and distributed lots of good information. We attended a Harm Reduction Conference in the East Bay and a conference in Sacramento for the California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom.
We attended both days of the annual Anarchist Bookfair in San Francisco and made dozens of new friends. We appeared on KPFA, on La Onda Bajita, as part of the Mentes Mechistas segment. And we hosted two activist gatherings/parties, to build relationships with fellow youth activists and to…well…party.

Most excitingly, March was a month of renewed mass protests in our region, and we were excited to take part. On March 4th, we joined tens of thousands of students, teachers, and workers in a statewide strike to defend public education. We marched from UC Berkeley all the way to downtown Oakland in an 8 mile march. Then we headed to San Francisco, where 10,000 people rallied at City Hall. On March 21st, we participated in a massive march in Santa Rosa to celebrate Cesar Chavez and to call for comprehensive immigration reform. We joined nearly 7,000 people (one of the biggest demonstrations in years!) marching from Roseland to downtown Santa Rosa. The very next day, we traveled to Sacramento for the “March in March,” another statewide student protest against cuts to education. Over 15,000 converged on the capitol, and we made many new contacts with students in our region. Just two days later, we took a bus with 100 other Sonoma County residents, many from the Committee for Immigrants’ Rights and the RIFA campaign (Reform Immigration For America), to a protest of 2,000 people for immigrants’ rights in San Francisco.

You can be certain that this is only the beginning. And that as the weather heats up, so will our desires for a new world. April is already full with protests, mass meetings, fundraising, workshops, and hijinx.

If you want to join in the fun, contact IMPACT! at impactpetaluma@gmail.com. And check out our website, www.impactpetaluma.org, or our blog, impactpetaluma.blogspot.com

Friday, April 2, 2010

April 10th Mass Meeting of Students and Young People!

The April 10 mass meeting of students and young people is fast approaching and we have been letting as many people know about this as we can. So far we have:
-Handed out over 1,000 flyers
-Invited approximately 1700 people through Facebook and sent out hundreds of emails
-Talked to several college and high school classrooms
-Got press coverage in Napa, Vallejo, and Santa Rosa
-gathered hundreds of contacts from dozens of campus clubs and organizations around the north bay
-Set up a facebook event for inviting people. Visit it here to invite your friends: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=106123422750271&ref=ts

But we are not done yet. If you can help us with outreach, or know any one that would like to help, please contact us! Schools we are either continuing outreach to, or looking to contact, include: Casa Grande, Petaluma High, SSU, SRJC, Napa Valley, Analy, Ursuline, SR High, R.U.P., Rancho Cotati, Windsor, Healdsburg high, Maria Carrillo.

Also, if you know of any additional schools or youth organizations that we, or you, could contact, please let us know! We have fliers available for distribution, email srnocuts@gmail.com for PDF's.

IMPORTANT!- We need to organize carpools and rides for a lot of people! Please email us if you have room in your vehicle for people from Santa Rosa or Petaluma!
As this meeting is for all of us young people and students, we are gathering as much information as we can on what each of us individually want so we can address that collectively at the meeting. The meeting agenda is going look something like this:

Agenda:
Introductions: Meet the rest of the youth around the North Bay and here about what other clubs and organizations are up to.
Proposal: We are proposing that all young people and students of the North Bay come together in a coalition that will organize to defend public education and fight for social justice.
Small Group discussion: We will break up into small groups and discuss this proposal. This is where everyone will get a chance to share their thoughts and include their ideas into this proposal.
Future Actions: We will come back together as a big group, report on what we talked about in the small group, discuss future actions, the next meeting, and what we are going to do with this massive coalition!
Closing: Party?

Clubs/Groups/Organizations: You are encouraged to bring pamphlets and information on your organization as well as information on your upcoming events for everyone.

Coalition Questions:
If you have time, the more feedback we get from people the smoother we can make this meeting run. Fill out and email this questionnaire to srnocuts@gmail.com today!
What would you like this coalition to focus on? If you could choose 2 or 3 issues for a youth coalition to focus on, what would they be?
What should the goal of the coalition be?
What should the responsibilities be for those who want to join the coalition?
What are some possible names for the coalition?

Thank you all for coming out!
-The as of yet unnamed North Bay Coalition of Youth and Students

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Current list of clubs, groups and organizations endorsing the meeting and coalition:
IMPACT! (Petaluma), MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) (National network with several North Bay chapters), Free Mind Media (Santa Rosa), Zero Campaign (Petaluma), Students for a Democratic Society (National network with Napa Valley College chapter), The Northbay Uprising Radio Show (http://northbayuprising.blogspot.com), Students for Quality Education (National network with Sonoma State University chapter).

-If your club, group or organization endorses this meeting and coalition and would like to be on the list, email srnocuts@gmail.com.