PROJECT HOMELESS CONNECT 4
Sign up to volunteer HERE!
Thursday, September 19, 2013
8:00 am – 4:00 pm
Cook Convention Center
255 North Main Street
You can make a difference. 1,000 people experiencing homelessness and in need of services are expected to attend this fourth installment of a massive outreach and service event to break down barriers that make it difficult to leave homelessness. We need just as many volunteers!
Services Anticipated:
Medical and vision (limited), housing counseling and placement, employment services, Food Stamps, Medicaid, and Social Security, as well as Veteran’s Benefits and related services, substance abuse and mental health, HIV/AIDS testing, legal assistance, counseling and support, IDs, barber shop, donated goods, and food.
To volunteer, please sign up on the Community Alliance for the Homeless website:communityallianceforthehomeless.com or call (901) 527-1302, Monday – Friday, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm. Volunteers must be 18 years of age or older.
Growing Strong
The H.O.P.E. Garden Crew has taken off! Members have been educating themselves about the sustainable food movement, working in community gardens throughout the city, and laying the groundwork for their own garden in Midtown, where many of our members reside. Right now, the Garden Crew is planning a community outreach effort and ‘garden party’ to get input and involvement from the surrounding neighborhood.
“We want to show the community that even if some of us do not have homes, we are still important,” said one member. “We have the desire and drive to make the neighborhoods in which we live more beautiful, sustainable, and vibrant places for the entire community.”
You can provide support for this project by donating hand rakes, shovels, hoes, garden gloves, wheelbarrows, tarps, untreated lumber, screws, nails, wooden palettes, sling blades, hand pruners, water hose, volunteers, organic seeds, and other assorted garden supplies. (No chemical fertilizer, please.) If you would like to donate supplies, or join us in the garden one day, please contact Dallas Holland at dallasholland@gmail.com
Know Your Rights
On July 20th, H.O.P.E. members organizing with our ‘Street-Watch’ project hosted their third ‘Know Your Rights’ workshop at Cathedral of Grace Church on East Person, near Hamilton High School in South Memphis. Special thanks to Courtney Golden, Subliminal Thought Organizer, Brandon Shaw, Isaac Kimes, and Josh Spickler with the Shelby County Office of the Public Defender. We are looking forward to next month’s workshop, which will be held at the same location in late August.
Street-Watch is dedicated to educating our brothers and sisters on the street about their rights when encountering law enforcement as well as focusing on how as a community, we can document instances of police harassment and abuse. We believe we can use data compiled from complaints to pinpoint areas where police harassment is most likely to occur, and help identify ‘problem officers’ who believe that a badge and a gun give them the right to treat people on the streets of Memphis like second-class citizens.
Feeding the Movement
H.O.P.E would like to once again thank Just for Lunch who have just hired one of our members! We would also like to thank Memphis Center for Independent Living for providing us with space for our meetings while we seek a permanent location. There are lots of ways to feed the movement, and we would like to thank all of our allies for their continued support.
H.O.P.E. is the name of a Mid-South Peace and Justice Center-sponsored organization whose members are exclusively people currently homeless or have formerly experienced homelessness. For over a year now, H.O.P.E. has been organizing and agitating around the issues that are a priority to the homeless community. For meeting times and dates, call 901-300-0006.