WILPF BUSINESS MEETING
WILPF will meet on Thursday, June 12, at 7 p.m. at the Fresno Center for Nonviolence, 1584 N. Van Ness. This meeting is open to all members.
WOMEN IN BLACK
June 4 (first Wednesday of each month) at noon at Fresno County Courthouse; come on the month in which your birthday falls! Wear black, bring a sign if you wish and stand in silence for peace.
STIR IT UP—WILPF ON KFCF 88.1 FM (listener-supported free speech radio for Central California)
June 25, 3 p.m. (fourth Wednesday of each month). Jean Hays does outstanding interviews on subjects involving WILPF interests and activities. Tune in!
RAGING GRANNIES
Meetings on selected Mondays at 7 p.m. Call Ellie at 559-229-9807 for details.[end of box]
Successful Tax Day Action
Every year, WILPF members don’t preach to the choir when they hand out postcards showing that more than half of our tax dollars go to the military and the Pentagon due to our ongoing endless wars. Bev Fitzpatrick brought the Community Alliance; we handed out all we had. She, Ann Carruthers, Jean Hays, Nora DeWitt, Patti Bennett, Nancy Kelley, Nancy Waitdlow, Nancy Scheen, Lynn Graham and I mostly covered two-hour shifts from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Griffith Post Office.
We’d love to be at the Tower District Post Office and downtown too on tax day. Alas, we don’t have the woman power. Won’t some of you join us next year so we can expand our educational action? Many thanks to those who participated this year.
-Joan Poss
EcoGarden Potluck with the Raging Grannies on June 25
The Raging Grannies will sing at the open house/potluck at the Dakota EcoGarden on Sunday, June 25, at 2 p.m. Everyone is welcome. 2231 W. Dakota Ave. It’s not very far out—between Hughes and Marks on the south side of Dakota, right next to the police substation. The event goes from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
EcoGarden News: Art Dyson presented for the EcoVillage and Nancy Waidtlow spoke for the EcoGarden at the May 7 meeting of the Interfaith Summit on homelessness at the Islamic Cultural Center. Georgia Linscheid of Reedley donated a ton of stuff to the EcoGarden when she and her husband recently moved from their big place in the country to a smaller place in town. Like Georgia, many folks are thinking of us when they need to downsize or declutter.
Intermountain Nursery gave us a bunch of baby fruit trees and Lise Rosenthal has given us a lot as she and Vic prepare for a move. We are cheering on our residents who are making strides toward reaching their individual goals, especially Gerardo, who is completing his first semester at City College and will continue next semester, and Brittani, who has been working hard on her signature-gathering job and plans to go to City College this fall.
—Nancy Waidtlow
2014 Water Consortium Conference: Troubled Water Made Clearer
The water conference held on May 10 was wonderfully well conceived and organized by Jean Hays, Ann Carruthers, Mary Perich, Lynn Graham, Jay Hubbell, Kyla Mitchell, Julius Rasmussen, Elaine Rucker and others. Everyone learned something and everyone was inspired to take action on some aspect of these issues.
If you were unlucky enough to miss it, here are some suggestions to learn and act:
http://restorethedelta.org/support-take-action/
http://www.revivethesanjoaquin.org/
http://www.winnememwintu.us/journey-to-justice/shasta-dam-raise/
25th Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba in Fresno
Caravan routes through Canada and the United States: July 7–18
In Fresno on July 15!
Orientation and aid packing/invoicing: July 19–22
Border crossing: July 23 (What will they do to try to obstruct the caravan this year?)
Caravan route through Mexico to Tampico, and load the aid at the docks for shipment to Cuba: July 24
To Havana—educational program and solidarity: July 24–Aug. 2
Pastors for Peace offers concerned U.S. citizens an opportunity to demonstrate and enact an alternative foreign policy based in justice and mutual respect. More than 50 Pastors for Peace Caravans have traveled to Mexico, Central America and Cuba—delivering 3,000 tons of life-giving aid—and organizing at home for a more just policy toward our neighbors in the hemisphere.
The U.S. government does not want its citizens to visit or to send humanitarian aid to Cuba and puts many obstacles in our way. We travel to Cuba without a U.S. government license as a conscious act of civil disobedience and as a challenge to the U.S. government’s cruel and immoral economic blockade of Cuba, which uses the denial of food and medicine as a political weapon.
Each caravan is an endeavor of love rooted in social justice. It’s a huge project linking people, vehicles and humanitarian aid. But a caravan is not just about the caravanistas. It’s about a network of thousands of people who may not leave their own community but who organize outreach events, raise money, collect and sort the aid, feed the caravanistas and remain ready to protest if the caravan should face any problems at the border crossing. We call the latter our Emergency Response Network.
I invite all WILPF members to join the caravan network and to help in this effort.
