CONTENTS 2/16/2021
Luggage Needed
Donation Intentions
Laundry Brigade
Soup Brigade
Love Your Neighbors Week
Clean & Abundant Water Lobby
Immigration Advisory
Bicycle Silliness
Radio Free Fl!p: Everybody’s Gotta Be Somewhere
LUGGAGE NEEDED
The Warming Shelter closes tomorrow (Wah!). The homeless folks there, as well as the ones in tents, really need luggage, especially packs and luggage with wheels. They’re constantly moving. We’re not sure how to supply these, since the City is constrained from sharing anything used. It may make the most sense to bring luggage to our house, and Outreachers can pick it up to distribute from here.
If you were planning to take snacks down, better to bring those here too at this point. And rain ponchos. Looks like we’re going to get rain on Thursday through the weekend.
DONATION INTENTIONS
You have been wonderfully generous lately, and I’ve been researching today to see how we can make the best use of your donations.
Tomorrow I get to find out how many sleeping bags we can actually get our hands on. Big Five will guarantee the $14 price, which is great. Delivery may be delayed, darn it! I also found a great supply of closed cell foam ground pads with mylar. The pads have loops on them to secure them when rolled up, so they are more likely to travel with those we give them to. And I found a really cheap local source for hand warmers, that don’t expire for almost two more years. I’m going to get a box and check out a sample to make sure they actually do a good job of warming. If they’re good, I will splurge!
I have chipped in a bit toward gas for some of the Out-Reachers. Writing to you, describing what they do, I realized that they have to go through a lot of gas, and not one of them is wealthy. I asked a couple of them and they were clearly relieved at the thought. We’ll figure this one out! I’m also chipping in towards the Laundry Brigade expenses. It’s so cool to be able to just see a need and meet it!
Tomorrow I will find someone to make the biggest SmartFoods run ever for ingredients and to-go containers. We really ran low during the snow. Which is good! I was so touched the people kept both cooking and delivering clear through the storm. We had a bunch of drivers who stepped up to keep everything moving through the snow. It was amazing!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
LAUNDRY BRIGADE
We can still use more volunteers. It’s genuine work, the real thing, and like all real work,L so important. Let me know if you’d like to try out a load and see if it will work for you.
SOUP BRIGADE
I got a bunch of interesting food donated today: tomato powder, freeze dried veggie flakes, dried beans, canned tomato chunks, canned chili beans, oatmeal!, Orzo, dried whole egg powder – mix it with flour for baking. Baking: a whole bunch of chocolate chips!!! Want to make cookies? I have an absolutely killer chocolate chip cookie recipe from my time cooking for Hungry Harold’s.
I have cooks signed up through Saturday and then I really need you! Best is if I have 2 – 3 cooks a day, making 25 meals each. Casseroles, soups, muffins, biscuits. (I will have the makings for garlic bread.) So far it’s most helpful if you email me, with your name, phone, address, and something about your availability. And what you’d like to cook! Lorelei is working with me to create a new MealTrain that will meet the new needs for distribution, which is so dependent on OutReachers. Our focus is on those who fall through the cracks of our current system.
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBORS WEEK
Due to weather, Love Your Neighbors Week has changed to putting hearts and messages for your neighbors in your windows this week and then dropping off hearts to hang at the Share Shack on the 20th during our CNA membership drive. Thank you for sharing this update. See FB event page for more details: www.Facebook.com/events/895858214320320
Thanks,
CNA Board
CLEAN & ABUNDANT WATER LOBBY
March 1st–5th, 2021. We’ll set up meetings with lawmakers, and there will be a training the week of February 22nd.
Join RE Sources and partners for a week of virtual action, where we’ll help make it easier to talk to your elected officials about several key bills that could become law this year to protect water. These laws would limit plastic pollution, end harmful seabed mining, and protect water rights as climate change strains precious waterways. We’ll hold a training session the week before so you have the tools and confidence to lobby. We encourage anyone to join, whether it’s your first time talking to lawmakers or not! We’ll be right alongside you at every step of the way.
RSVP: https://p2a.co/o3bDIGk
IMMIGRATION ADVISORY
The City of Bellingham Immigration Advisory Committee is meeting on Tuesday 2/16 at 6:30 pm, providing an opportunity for community engagement about issues that impact our immigrant community members. Community to Community (C2C) has a call to action to please attend and publicly comment on two items:
– continued discussion of policing issues and engagement with federal agencies
– continued discussion on improving immigration services in Bellingham.
Public comment is scheduled for 8pm.
Meeting link https://cob.zoom.us/j/93363401118?pwd=UzVFRVFiWDVsQzYrWHNYR1I2bWQyZz09#success
Meeting ID/Id de reunion: 933 6340 1118
Password/Contrasena: 422.
Phone/Telefono (253) 215-8782
If you cannot attend, you can send written comments to immigrationboard@cob.org.
BICYCLE SILLINESS
This was between my brother Joe and our mutual friend Libby, and it completely cracked me up:
Joe: We used to play bicycle tag on frosh pond at the UW when it froze, on sew-up tires, and then when I was 20 years older (but over 20 years younger than I am now) I rode on frozen lakes a lot, that other people were ice skating on. Just requires finesse and fast twitch. Whoever put their foot down first was “it.”
Libby: I have soooo many memories of spectacular slush wipeouts as a teen. Living in Ithaca NY, which is basically either ice or slush from October to March, and steeper than downtown Seattle, many opportunities arose for poor life decisions involving bicycles and frozen surfaces.
RADIO FREE FL!P: EVERYBODY’S GOTTA BE SOMEWHERE
Here’s a song Linda Allen wrote some years back when Berkeley was doing sweeps of the homeless, when she lived there. Seems timely now. (Linda raised her kids on Utter Street)
www.Lindasongs.com/everybody
Love/Fl!p 360-671-4511 2518 Cherry Street flip@columbianeighborhood.org
If you’re willing to share your phone with me, personally, I would love that, and would not share it further without your express permission. Nor would I ever exploit it. You might put mine in your phone so if I were to phone you, you’d know it was me. I’d also suggest adding flip@openaccess.org to your contacts because that helps keep my emails from going to your junk mail.
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.