CONTENTS 12/29/2020
City Hall Encampment
Soup Brigade Guidance & Rule Change
More Pots Needed
Pot Reservations
Ingredients
Timing
Mealtrain Sign-Up
The Current Situation
Help With Your Help!
Contact Our Government
Merry Zooming Christmas
Radio Free Flip: Sibling Revelry
SOUP BRIGADE GUIDANCE & RULE CHANGE
I got introduced online to Jessie today. He’s a key member of the food pavilion at the encampment. I’ve got a great source of info. Here’s a big thing! We no longer have to individually pack soup! We still need to pack everything else. I’ve got dinner boxes and bakery bags. For right now it’s just soup that doesn’t need packaging.
More Pots Needed
I need more really big pots donated. Goodwill brought pots out for curbside pickup for me a couple weeks ago. Value Village didn’t offer that. I’d love other folks to call around and find more. Bring them to my front porch. Don’t bring anything you want back, ok? Let me know you’ve dropped them off, and we’ll get them circulating to cooks.
Pot Reservations
Contact me to reserve a pot a couple days before you plan to cook, and pick up your pot the day before. I’ll ask my Egg Carriers to ask for and bring back pots from the encampment each morning. We’ll get them clean and back into play.
Ingredients
I have onions, potatoes, carrots, rice, & macaroni at the moment. Come and get ‘em! Turn them into soup, stews and casseroles.
Timing
From Jesse:
“If folks want to donate hot food and are not on the meal train I would recommend “off times”. Maybe mid afternoon 2-4 or later at night, after 9. If anyone is a very early riser hot meals between 5-7 are definitely in Desire. We also can clarify that large pots of soup are ok without individual packaging. They stay warmer longer and we have packaging on the ground.” ~ Jesse Thurston
MealTrain Sign-Up Link
Look for meals that have no one signed up yet, and also look for folks who have signed up to bring fewer than 50 meals. Click on their name, and coordinate with them to bring enough food between you. Your meals don’t have to match. Variety is a good thing. If you are bringing fewer than 50 meals, make sure you note that so others can supplement yours as well. If you can’t find a spot, it’s ok to just take in a pot of soup.
https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/nnmwke
THE CURRENT SITUATION
Blankets, tents, plastic storage bins, tarps, sleeping bags and other supplies are really needed, but please hold off on bringing them for a few days. The situation at City Hall is, as they say, “Fluid.” Campers are cold, wet & stressed, with no place to go inside and warm up through weeks of rain and high winds. The City has announced that on Monday it will erect fences to keep campers 25 feet away from buildings – the most sheltered areas where many small tents have been located. And into this added tension, an anti-mask protest rally has been announced for Tuesday at the courthouse. That’s two very stressful events in just the next couple days.
We’ve been asked to take a deep breath and wait a few days to deliver more supplies (except soup and hot food). Where volunteers are able to take specific items to specific campers, they will contact me.
If you call around for soup pots, you can also ask for wool blankets. See if you can pick them up, and bring them here to 2518 Cherry Street.
HELP WITH YOUR HELP!
Here at home, I’ve had so much help offered that I’ve needed to organize help with your help! As of today we have two other homes where you will be able to deliver donations. One is just a block from me. But the best bet at the moment is, let us know what you have to offer, and then hang onto it until I ask. If I haven’t asked in a week, remind me again. We’re getting systems set up to be sure donations go accurately to the individuals who need them most.
I adore you all! I am blown away with your support and assistance. Thank you!
CONTACT OUR GOVERNMENT
In the meantime, you could email the mayor’s office and county executive to ask whether the tiny “pallet homes” have been ordered yet and when they are expected to arrive. If enough of us are asking, it may speed action. Please remember to keep a warm tone to your contact. Our elected officials are also our neighbors. We can support them to do the right thing instead of trying to bully them. If a whole lot of us reach out, it may help.
MERRY ZOOMING CHRISTMAS
Have yourselves a merry zooming Christmas!
Keep the germs at bay.
Just hold on
Til vaccines bring a brighter day.
Wash your hands and ventilate your houses,
Wear masks when you’re out.
We’ll be fine
So set aside your angst and doubt.
Soon our lives won’t be so controlled
May I be so bold to say
Faithful friends will come near to us
Without fear for us one day
In the coming year we all can gather
If we take a vow
To celebrate in little Brady Boxes now
And have ourselves a merry Christmas anyhow.
By my friend Shan Cretin, for 2020
RADIO FREE FLIP: SIBLING REVELRY
My big brother Joe Breskin posted a clip of the two of us playing a duet, probably a quarter century ago. That’s me on an 1892 Martin guitar which was my heartstrings for many years (the one replaced by Columbia, the guitar gifted me by my dear neighborhood). Joe was playing our great-grandmother’s-sister’s guitar, which she got in Paris in 1880. I can hear that I was keeping it calm and simple, and letting Joe spiral around me in great joy. Joe used to only half-joke that the primary goal of the music was to let angels cry. Odds are good this instrumental will at least lower your blood pressure. Thanks Joe, for a sweet memory. We’ll play again one of these days.
Love/Fl!p 360-671-4511 2518 Cherry Street flip@columbianeighborhood.org
If you want to ask me to post something, just email me. If it’s urgent, phone. If it’s a real emergency, call 911.