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Want to participate in reshaping the landscape of radio?
Want to help bring Democracy Now! to Memphis?

A ten-year-long collective grassroots effort to open the airwaves to community radio stations achieved victory on January 7, 2011, when President Obama signed into law the Local Community Radio Act, which will allow Low-Power FM (LPFM) stations to flourish.

LPFM stations are small, community-based FM radio stations that are run by non-profits, such as colleges, churches, schools, labor unions, and other community groups.  These non-commercial stations are ideally positioned to meet local needs by giving a voice to local groups and people who otherwise lack access to media outlets, providing a platform for discussing local issues, presenting news and viewpoints often ignored by media, and creating diversity on the air through the representation of minorities.

The Mid-South Peace & Justice Center would like to invite you to a meeting to discuss the creation of a low-power, non-commercial community radio station for the greater Memphis area.

Date:        September 1, 2011
Time:        6:00 pm
Location:  Mid-South Peace & Justice Center, located at 1000 S. Cooper St.

If you have any questions, please contact Jacob Flowers at (901) 725-4990.

We’ve been busy this summer doing some very exciting development work on our training program with the help of an amazing national training organization, Training for Change. The result is a completely new training program for the community! The  program is still called G.O.T. Power (Grassroots Organizers Training for Power) but is now made up of three components: Core Organizer Training (our flagship grassroots organizing training), a Training of Trainers, and a series of ongoing Support and Development Trainings.

The Core Organizer Training, previously known as G.O.T. Power, teaches participants the foundational skills they need to be effective organizers and win on issues that are important to them. We are incorporating a new model of learning, one based on popular education and integrating experiential education. This allows people to learn in a hands-on, direct manner, while also drawing out the expertise that the individual already has within. The result is a training that is fully interactive and has direct application in each session. The Core Organizer Training is so new we highly recommend that even past G.O.T. Power graduates take this training, as completely new tools are used to teach the skills in a totally new way. Topics covered include: Intro to Organizing, Organizing your Community, Campaign Planning, Facilitating Meetings, Media, Transforming Conflict, and Direct Action. The next Core Organizer training begins on September 15th. Email our Training Director Allison at allison@midsouthpeace.org to get an application.

We are thrilled to also be able to offer a Training of Trainers program for the first time. In the spirit of popular education, we do not want to be the gatekeepers of training knowledge. We want to train people to do trainings in their own communities, with their own community members. It is in that spirit that we are creating a Training of Trainers program. This program is available to all past G.O.T. Power graduates and graduates of the Core Organizer Training. This training goes into more depth around skills such as facilitation, working with diverse communities, transforming conflict, and working with various group dynamics.

Support and Development Trainings are offered to Core Organizer enrollees, graduates, and individuals and organizations in the larger community to enhance their organizing skill sets. Trainings available include: Mindful Communication, Consensus Based Facilitation, Advanced Facilitation, GOTV: Civic Engagement, Anti-oppression and Diversity, Nonviolent Action, Framing and Messaging, Citizen Lobbying, Canvassing and Phonebanking, and more. Support and Development Trainings are designed to both build skills and provide personal support structures for G.O.T. Power graduates or anyone engaged in organizing and community change work. Recent examples of Support and Development trainings that were offered by members of our community include Emotional Support for Activists facilitated by Laura Sullivan, and Collaborative Art as a Vehicle for Social Action facilitated by Richard Lou. Check our calendar for the next training. We are also excited to be offering a workshop on Deconstructing Power for the national GetEQUAL www.getequal.org organizer training that will be in Memphis later this month.

Another important and exciting change within our training program is an expanded capacity for offering trainings to the community. MSPJC offers many workshops publicly, but we also offer our workshops to organizations and people working around a specific issue, with each tailored to meet the organization or group’s individual needs. We are able to offer one of our Core Organizer Trainings, or we can design a workshop series that will meet your specific needs. If you are interested in bringing this powerful training to your organization or group please contact center@midsouthpeace.org.

We are also incorporating a sliding scale fee model for our trainings. As we in the non-profit sphere know all too well, depending on outside funding is not a sustainable or dependable model to rely on to be able to continue doing our important work. We already know how valuable these trainings are to our participants, and we are proud of moving in a more sustainable direction to ensure that we are able to continue providing top quality trainings. We also hold the value of keeping barriers-to-entry as low as possible, which is why our training program is hundreds of dollars less than comparable programs both locally and nationally, and this is also why we are instituting a sliding scale model based on an individual’s income or an organization’s annual budget. Most trainings are also offered free to our members.

We are so glad to be able to continue to support the Memphis community by building a base of organizers with the skills to be able to make positive change within our community. We know that our experiences and lives are interconnected, and the positive change that occurs in your community affects us all. We look forward to learning with you soon and we appreciate your continued support!

The Neighborhood Alliance is now proud to be working with Shelby County Juvenile Court in finding meaningful service opportunities for young men and women with court-ordered community service.

Contact us with any neighborhood clean-up, community garden or other neighborhood activities that your association or congregation is working on. Please list the dates and times and how many volunteers are needed and a contact person’s info. Juvenile Court will then work with our staff to assign young people with court-ordered community service to opportunities that are close to their homes. The Neighborhood Alliance sees this as an opportunity for mentoring and reaching out to young people within our neighborhoods and more than a simple community service opportunity.

We are proud to report that we have already secured commitments from the SOUTH MEMPHIS FARMERS MARKET as well as the Binghampton-based URBAN FARM and URBAN MARKET. We want to extend our thanks to these wonderful new partners, and we hope they are but the first of many more.

If you have any upcoming events that would be a good opportunity for youth community service, please contact our Organizing Director at brad@midsouthpeace.org or 901.725.4990.

We know that you are working hard to ensure that your neighborhoods are healthy, thriving communities, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Join the Neighborhood Alliance to work with others who are advocating, organizing and promoting legislation and policies to improve the quality of life in all our neighborhoods. Working as a team, we can make a difference!

All alliance meetings are on the last two Mondays of each month. The planning and agenda-setting meeting is meant to build the Alliance and decide what form the Alliance will take and what issues will be its focus. Our second meeting is an open-to-the-public workshop on building the skills needed to help your organization grow and thrive.

Planning and Agenda Setting Meeting


Monday, August 22nd at 6 p.m.

Topic: Join our working group to build a consensus agenda across neighborhoods for the improvement of all our communities.

Organizing Your Community Workshop


Monday, August 29th at 6 p.m.

Topic: (Part 2) GET OUT THE VOTE (GOTV) workshop-GOTV operations and how your neighborhood association can be a player in city elections.

Location: Mid-South Peace and Justice Center Offices • 1000 South Cooper • North side rear entrance of First Congo • Look for MSPJC sign next to bright red doors.

Questions? Contact Brad Watkins at brad@midsouthpeace.org or 901-725-4990.

PROJECT HOMELESS CONNECT is a massive one-day event targeting unsheltered homeless people in Memphis and Shelby County at which all the resources and services needed to end homelessness for individuals are provided under one roof—at one time. Community volunteers pair up one-on-one with homeless individuals beginning with street engagement and ending with providing access to a wide array of resources at the Cook Convention Center. Dozens of agencies and service providers join together to break down barriers that make it difficult for individuals to leave homelessness behind.

This project is a venture of the Community Alliance to End Homelessness and the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center is proud to be a community partner in this effort.

We urge everyone to please sign up to be a volunteer at this event. This will be a massive effort, and we as a community must mobilize to ensure that it is as much of a success as it can be. To register to volunteer or to get more info, go to the event page here and help us spread the word to your neighborhood association, civic clubs and congregations. They need 1,000 total volunteers, so please make every effort to help yourself and spread the word.

What – Project Homeless Connect

When – Friday, September 16th, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

END HOMELESSNESS

We are also asking that you help us spread the word about the dire need of those who are experiencing homelessness in the brutal summer heat. We are calling on the community to call our Mayors A. C. Wharton at 576-6000 and Mark Luttrell at 545-5000 to urge them to keep their campaign promises to provide set-aside jobs for those who are experiencing homelessness out of the $7.4 million in city contracts for blight demolition, neighborhood clean up and renovation work. We can curb blight and give those who are homeless a fighting chance.

How do you make your food stamps go farther?  Take them to the farmers market!

GrowMemphis has launched a new program to give shoppers using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, formerly known as Food Stamps, more purchasing power at two Memphis farmers markets. The new program, called Double Green$, will provide a dollar-for-dollar match up to $10 when shoppers spend their SNAP benefits at participating farmers markets.

Earlier this year, the Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market, South Memphis Farmers Market, and Urban Farms Market became the first farmers markets in Memphis, and among the first in Tennessee, to accept SNAP benefits market-wide. Now, the Double Green$ program will go even further toward increasing access to fresh, healthy, and affordable foods, especially in the food desert areas surrounding or nearby these markets, by making locally grown fruits and vegetables more affordable.

Both the Cooper-Young and South Memphis farmers markets are participating in Double Green$.  The Urban Farms market is waiting for a determination of their eligibility.  All three markets currently accept food stamps.

“We’ve been slowly ramping up this program with our SNAP customers for the past few weeks, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive from vendors and shoppers alike,” said Sue Easley, organizer of the Cooper-Young Community Farmers Market. “It’s been a great experience working with GrowMemphis and our other local farmers markets as a team to bring something to Memphis that has the potential to really help our low-income residents, our farmers, our neighborhoods, and our rural communities, all in one swoop.”

How does it work?  Shoppers can go to the market booth and swipe their EBT card, receiving tokens that can be spent with vendors.  Double Green$ will match, dollar-for-dollar and up to $10, the amount that they put on their EBT card with tokens that can be used to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.

“Double Green$ gets more people to the markets, increases revenue for farmers, and increases access to healthy foods for low-income residents” says Josephine Alexander of GrowMemphis, “We know that food stamps make Tennessee stronger.  Now, food stamps can make farmers markets stronger, too.”

By increasing attendance and sales at farmers markets in areas with limited access to healthy food, those markets become stronger and more successful, so that they can continue to serve neighborhood residents with much needed access to healthy and affordable food choices.

In order to bring this program to Memphis, GrowMemphis partnered with Wholesome Wave, a Connecticut-based non-profit working with partners in 26 states to implement  double value coupon programs like Double Green$ that benefit consumers in under-served communities and the farmers who provide for them.

The program is expected to run through the end of October.  Funds for Double Green$ have been provided by the Wholesome Wave Foundation, Whole Foods Market, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, and Seedco.