We NEED VOLUNTEERS to help organize the Darfur Dress and Dash: Halloween 5k and Family Fun 1K.

That's right, we're dressing up for Halloween and dashing near the Deschutes to raise money for Darfur!

We NEED YOUR HELP to make this run happen. Join us in planning this first-ever event for Bend!

Proceeds will go toward purchasing solar cookers for Darfuri refugees. Providing solar cookers eliminates the need for women and children to gather firewood--the most dangerous and vulnerable time for them as they become targets for rape and murder outside the safety of the refugee camp. These solar cookers are also environmentally friendly, create jobs in the camps, and allow women to cook without having to be near a burning fire in scorching temperatures. Sounds like a pretty good reason to don a costume and run for Darfur!

We Need help with:
* Getting sponsors
* Assisting the day of the race
* Getting the word out--telling friends, family, coworkers, peers, your community, etc.
* Designing t-shirts
* Getting people to run!
* Working with schools to get youth involved
* Mapping the course
* Media
* Making posters/flyers
* and more!

If you are interested in joining us, please email us at: darfurdressanddash@gmail.com

Looking forward to working with you!

Hey!

We are organizing an art walk for Darfur and are looking for submissions from students and community members. The theme is: "My Dream for Darfur." We would love to get numerous works from students and local artists. It will be showing in Central Oregon (Bend, and maybe other towns if we can organize it!).

The art walk will take place the first part of November, and we will be accepting pieces through mid to late October.

You can help by creating and submitting a piece, or by telling your friends, family, peers, teachers and school about it!

If you would like to know more, please contact me!
con paz,
sarah
sjstark at gmail.com

Hey!
Here are some of our notes from the last meeting we had. We are planning a Dream for Darfur event for November in Central Oregon. Please contact me if you wish to get involved! Please spread the word!
con paz,
sarah


Central Oregon Dream for Darfur Meeting Notes from Wednesday August 28, 2007

WHEN: SOMETIME BETWEEN NOVEMBER 10-12, 2007

1) Get people involved!!
We need to get others involved in the early stages of planning--how will we get people involved?
--Hand out flyers at high-traffic events: farmer's markets, art walk, etc.
--contact people we know, friends and family
--create a MySpace account
--add info about it in blogs
--post in church bulletins, event bulletins, etc.
--spreading the word…we all need to get the word out!

2) Our vision of the event so far:
--Art walk of some sort involving artwork done by kids…theme to be focused on Children Helping Children…their "Dream for Darfur;" also have art by local artists. These may be up in coffee shops, art galleries, hopefully for First Friday in order to spread the word about the big event
--Camp Darfur: possibly on a Sunday or Monday, at a school, park, or highly visible or easily accessible location
--Torch rally/speech-type event

3) Fundraising: if we raise funds, we want to be transparent about where the money goes, and what the organizations will use the money for. We want to find 2-4 good organizations that we can recommend people donate to--the organizations we choose should have information about them and exactly what the organizations use the money for. One of those should be an organization that focuses on helping children in Darfur (possibly with education, etc.). We prefer people to write checks directly to the organization of their choice, but we will accept cash donations. We must be good stewards of their money and make sure it gets to the right place.

4) Permits: an assembly permit costs $124 and should be filed 30-90 days in advance. We would also need liability insurance for events in public places. The Bend code lists places they prefer events to be held. One of those is Mirror Pond.
--Danielle will be the point person for logistics and permits. If we get any info or help in this area, we should contact Danielle.
--As we continue to plan, we can figure out what our expected number of participants will be.

5) Media: Sarah will be the point person for media. If you want to help with contacting media outlets, doing press releases or flyers/brochures, please contact her.
--Sarah will start working on putting together an information packet, flyer, and other info that we can give to people
--We want to involve the Unitarian Universalist group that plans to go to Darfur in the coming year. We think this will help their group spread the word about their work, upcoming trip, etc. We also think it will help to highlight the work, effort and passion for Darfur in Central Oregon.

6) People to contact:
EVERYONE CAN CONTACT: Schools, COCC groups, churches, other
organizations and businesses, our representatives
--SMART of Redmond (Bill)
--Rise Up, Inc. (Danielle will contact)
--Famous Bullrider in Prineville (Danielle will contact)
--Code Pink (Danielle)
--Rise Up (Danielle)
--the Unitarian Universalist group that plans to go to Darfur (Phil will contact)
--First Presbyterian Church (Phil)
--Devore's (Phil)
--Spiritual Awareness Center (Phil)
--Backporch Coffee (Phil)
--Peace Center of Central Oregon (Phil)
--Human Dignity coalition (Phil)
--Jewish Community in Central Oregon (Phil)
--Starbuck's (Sarah)
--Bellatazza (Sarah)
--Balay (Sarah)
--Art Station (Sarah)
--Nicholas Kristof (Sarah)
--Boys and Girls Club (Sarah)
--Society of Friends/Quakers (Sarah)
--Relief workers, relief orgs., survivors, NW Medical Teams (Sarah)
**There are others that aren't listed!

7) Point People:
--Bill will post on blogs and other web-related media
--Phil will keep track of Outreach contacts. If we contact someplace or someone, let him know!
--Sarah: media
--Danielle: logistics/permits, MySpace and other internet outreach
**Hopefully we can get point people to fill in other roles as needed.

8) Art Walk info:
*Submissions done by mid-October
*Focus on children helping children. Theme: Dream for Darfur
*Sarah could hold PeaceTiles workshops for youth and adults for art submissions
*Get schools and local artists involved
*Hang for public to see for around three weeks: last week of October and first couple weeks of November
*Have them for First Friday

We need volunteers to help put up posters and flyers around the greater Portland, OR area these next two weeks! We need to let people know that Genocide Awareness Week is coming up!

If you are interested in helping that way, please email Megan at megan@cellardoordesign.com to find out how to pick up posters and flyers.

We need to get the word out about Genocide Awareness Week!

Also, we could use some help at events during the week, so if you are interested, please email Sarah at sjstark@gmail.com

Here are last meeting's notes, if you would like to see what was covered. Meetings will be twice a month from now on, and be on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month.

Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness Meeting
January 25, 2007 7PM

15 people in attendance at The Urban Grind

I.Feb./March PCGA events- with Portland's Amnesty International Group #48:
Feb. 7th Lincoln HS Dr. Steve Boyer- Darfur
Feb. 14th- Panel Discussion at Lincoln HS on Darfur- Dr. Boyer, Jane Kristof, Marty Fromer
March 19th- Gresham High School International League- Dr. Boyer on Darfur
March 15th-- PSU Darfur presentation by Dr. Boyer

II. Genocide Awareness Week(GAW)
A. The group approved the idea that one person should take control of an event and make all critical decisions.
B. The ragge group New Born is willing to fundraiser for GAW.
C. The Jubitz Foundation has granted $5350 for GAW. This heavy lifting was done by Katie Jay and Josh. Great work.
1. Oregon Peace Institute(OPI) will charge 10% to administer this money until we get our own 501c non profit status established.
2. Money to be spent with the approval of the PCGA council.
D. The group approved a proposal that all fund raiding before GAW will go exclusively towards GAW.
E. Films
1. Raphael to work with the Armenian community to bring "Screamers" to Portland. The film is a documentary of a heav metal group of consisting kids whose parents survived the genocide.
2. Sarah Stark will continue to work on the Sundance film on Darfur.
3. Megan said we could possibly get the Wyden & Kennedy venue at no charge for a film or speaking event.
4. Josh is investigating a Cambodian film called "The Flute Player."
F. Speakers-
1. Judith Armnta- Currently writing a book on the Malosivich trial, the first ICC trial where a genocide was examined.
She is interested in doing a reading.
2. Nicholas Kristof-- He has declined our offer for now, but might consider a summer event when he is in Oregon visiting family.
3. Earl Blumenauer- He wanted to do something with Kristof, but their office wants us to keep them informed. Does anyone have any ideas how we can utilize Earl??
4. An Armenian priest who went to Rwanda
5. Lisa who is currently in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is interested in an event.
6. Ruth Messenger is in town but currently booked on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The group wants to meet with her informally for leadership and direction on Friday April 13 in the afternoon. Marty will try and coordinate this event.
G. Workshops- The group agreed that no one has stepped forward to coordinate workshops this year.
H. Poster
1. Keep the same logo as last year with the"hands."
2. Lynn, an art major from Lewis and Clark College, will head the committee including Rebeca, Josh, Meagan and Lynn.
3. 3 drafts will should be presented to the group. W hope to have a final version by March 12.
I. Media- Ursula will continue to work on media and 501c status.
III. Art Show
A. The March 1st Thursday show is advancing. Unfortunately Nicole had an injury and was unable to be here. We miss you and our best wishes for a speedy recovery.
B. There are seven artists who are working with the common theme of celebrating survival
C. We can table this event.
IV. Business Cards- To be used a tabling events
A. Josh will develop
B. The group approved $30.00 to be spent for a phone so we would have a number on the business card
V. Next Meeting
A. Katie Jay to facilitate meetings through GAW
B. We will meet on the second and forth Thursdays through GAW
C. Next meeting will be on Feb. 8th at Urban Grind unless a new location is announced. 7PM Blast off

Hey coalition members!

It looks like the meeting might be rescheduled due to weather in Portland. Many people have expressed interest in meeting next week instead.

If you would still like to meet today or tomorrow (Jan 17th or 18th), please call me at 208-739-3308 or email me at sjstark@gmail.com

My schedule is flexible right now, and I would be happy to meet with you.

Otherwise, have a great snow day and see you next week!

con paz,
sarah
sjstark@gmail.com
Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness

Hello friends and activists!

I've come across a bit of a glitch in this wonderful system, that will not allow me to reply to emails or to send messages to anyone who wrote me. The only way is if you have first made me a "friend" in your settings.

So, if you emailed me, hoping to hear back from me, thanks for your patience, and PLEASE SEND ME A MESSAGE AGAIN with your email address included. OR, you can email me personally at: sjstark@gmail.com

The other option would be to add me to your friends through the Communities United to Save Darfur website.

Some of you have sent really important messages that I would love to respond to!

best,
sarah

Dear Friends,

In just a couple of weeks, the international community will be showing its support for Darfur by engaging in the Weekend of Prayer for Darfur.

The Portland and NW Oregon area was chosen as one of a handful of areas to focus on during this time of faith and activism, and because this matter is very important to me, I am doing my best to contact every faith group that I can.

I am asking you to stand with us this December, joining diverse communities of faith, to protect the people of Darfur and call for an end to genocide in Sudan. Let's send a message to the world that we will not stand idly by and watch the death of our brothers and sisters.

On the weekend of December 8, 9 and 10 we need you to call on your faith community to include a prayer for Darfur in weekly services. Save Darfur Coalition has offered to deliver to your house of worship a "Call to Conscience" banner for display during the Weekend of Prayer for Darfur.

Sign-up for your banner and support material at:
Link

You can get a packet of information to help plan your prayer event at: www.savedarfur.org/faith

December 10, 2006 is International Human Rights Day. All communities of faith are united in recognizing universal human rights. The Weekend of Prayer for Darfur is timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day.

Hundreds of churches, synagogues and mosques around the country are displaying banners. Each banner helps to raise awareness and can create another activist working to protect the people of Darfur.

Please join thousands of other communities of faith on December 8, 9 and 10.
The people of Darfur need your prayers. Your efforts will also be heard here at home, where our national leaders must be reminded that the people of Darfur need them to take action today.

Thank you for being a committed Darfur activist. Your continuing efforts deliver hope and save lives. Please help the effort by spreading the word! Please tell other faith groups in your neighborhood or that you know.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me by phone or email.
Sincerely,

sarah stark
--
sarah j. stark
Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness
www.genocideawareness.net
Link
sjstark@gmail.com
208-739-3308

We need volunteers who will help plan two major art events to raise awareness of genocide.

The first is an art show for First Thursday in March, and it will be at the City Hall. The art show will showcase stories of survival and raise local voices against genocide.

If you are interested in helping out, come to our planning meeting on at 7 pm on December 4th at The Urban Grind Coffehouse located on the corner of NW 14th & Johnson.

If you are unable to make the meeting, but are interested in helping out, please email me at: sjstark@gmail.com or email Nickole Cheron at: nlcheron@pdx.edu


The other event that we need volunteers to help plan and coordinate is a musical performance by Canadian-Armenian musician Mariam Matossian and other local artists. The performance will be the end of Genocide Awareness Week, sometime between the 19-24 of April.

If you would like to help plan this event, please email me at: sjstark@gmail.com

Thank you for your help!!
con paz,
sarah

As you may already know, the national weekend of prayer for Darfur is being planned for December 8,9 & 10. Portland has been selected as one of a handful of cities that Save Darfur will focus on for this weekend.

It will take all of us to rally our personal or local places of faith to make it successful!!! The process is relatively easy, but the message it sends will be massive.

For more information, go to the Save Darfur website at:

Link

Or, you can email me at: sjstark@gmail.com

Tell as many places of faith as you can! Let's send the message to everyone that Oregon and the Portland area care!

con paz,
sarah

hey-a!
i came across this cool site to raise support for darfur, and wanted to share it with everyone. check out this message, and spread the word! if you feel like you can
donate a dollar, please do. it's an ingenious way of raising support!
love, sarah

message:
Hi, Sarah. I'm a software engineer from Seattle, and I've created a
web site to raise money for Darfur: http://darfurwall.org. The site is
tiled with the numbers 1 to 400,000, representing deaths in Darfur.
Each $1 donation lights a number. I thought you might share this with
your group as a fast, easy way to support peace in Darfur.

Thanks and keep up the good work,

Jonah

If you would like to sign-up to be on our planning listserve, please go to:

Link

This listserve keeps us in communication for planning, event coordination, meetings, etc.

Thanks!
sarah

The meeting date and time are finalized, and it looks like we'll be meeting this Thursday the 16th at 7pm at Urban Grind. Urban Grind is located at 911 NW 14th Ave. Portland, OR

Please Join Us!

Volunteer opportunity!
We have the opportunities to table at the Lost Boys screenings, and unfortunately I will not be back in time to make it to help out. Is anybody else willing and available to do this? It would be great to have at least two people each night.

We will have information about the Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness, how to get involved to save Darfur, and information about other upcoming events.

Here is the info:
The screenings will be November 7 and 8, 2006. The November 7th screening will be at the Hollywood Theater on NE Sandy and the November 8th screening will be at PCC Cascade Campus in North Portland. The screenings will begin at 6:15 p.m. and we would like to have our community partners arrive at 5:30 p.m. I still need to confirm what time the doors will open (I think it's 30 minutes prior to the show). More information about the film may be found at www.LostBoysFilm.com and Link.

If you are interested, please email me at: sjstark@gmail.com
Thanks!!!

I want to ask you to be part of a grassroots effort here in Portland, putting together Genocide Awareness Week 2007. We are a group of individuals and groups from all walks of life, working as a coalition to organize a variety of events throughout Portland in April 2007. Our goal is to address genocide: past, present, and prevention, harms and hurts, healing and hope.

We need more organizations, students, faith-based groups, artists, event-planners, individuals and community members to be part of Portland's second Genocide Awareness Week. Our goal is to engage and include as many people and groups as possible--we cannot achieve that alone.

The increasingly desperate situation in Darfur, Sudan and encouragements from our first GAW have convinced us we must do it again; but this time we must do it better. We must start planning sooner and work harder to get more of Portland's groups and organizations involved and hosting or planning events.

One of our main focuses this year is on survival. We want to highlight stories of survival and the lives of refugees.
We are also looking for ideas for events, potential collaborations, fundraising help, event planning help, and any other input that could benefit the planning of Genocide Awareness Week. Please us!

Thank you. I look forward to collaborating with you!

con paz,
sarah

--
sarah j. stark
Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness
www.genocideawareness.net
sjstark@gmail.com
208-739-3308 / 503-282-1108

The Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness is an entirely grassroots effort involving individuals, non-profits, schools and groups in order to raise awareness of, educate about, heal from, and prevent genocide. Our efforts are only as big or as limited as those who are involved.

Notes from Meetings September 21st and 22nd:

NEXT MEETING: WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18TH details TBA
FACILITATOR: NICKOLE

Upcoming Events:

October 8th House Party at Marty Fromer's
• Dr. Boyer will be talking
• Cheryl will cook food to bring. Possibly some sort of divine sweet dessert involving lavender whip cream.
• KTJ might bring food as well.
• Fundraising priorities: Darfur and Genocide Awareness Week: give people the option to choose if they want to donate, and be clear that we are raising money for both. Give people a choice to donate to either one or both…possibly give people two envelopes?
• Get the word out! Everyone is invited!

October 19th: American Jewish Committee is hosting John Heffernan to speak on Darfur.
• Temple Beth Israel: 1972 NW Flanders
Portland, 97209
• Could Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness have information there?
• We should contact to see if they would like info or have us table.
• Sarah S. will email the info out to Evelyn (OHRC)

Benson Deng: will be speaking at the PeaceMakers conference Nov. 15th
• Is arriving November 14th from Seattle with Judy (his friend/editor/mentor)
• WE NEED SOMEONE TO TAKE THE LEAD IN ARRANGING THIS EVENT!!! It is coming up soon!
• Ursula and Cheryl could help organize
• We need to plan an event for November 14th at 7 pm (he could speak at 7:30pm)…possibly at a bookstore?
o Some bookstores we mentioned were:
 In Other Words
 Powell's
 Looking Glass
 Nob Hill Bookstore

• Christina has been in contact with Benson, but needs help organizing this event
• Christina will contact bookstores
• Could Ursula write a press release if we get the event together?
• Vermont Hills Methodist Church would probably be available through Evelyn and OHRC, if we need it.
• We should try to get an honorarium for him, if we can. Could we "pass the hat" at the event?
 We have $40 that KTJ raised that she will donate for the honorarium.
 Ursula also offered to pitch-in a bit for the honorarium
• Nickole with contact Kofi @ PSU to see if we could have it there
• Someone should contact Tom Hastings (PSU professor)
• Rachel will contact Pacific Crest to see if they would be interested.
• We can always use Proper Eats as a back-up plan
• Book-signing: Book store would probably need to order more books for it

Oregon Teachers of English (?) Conference: Oct. 7th
• Evelyn said OHRC will have a table there. If we can get some print resources to her, she offered to have them on the table
• Portland Coalition should also get materials from OHRC to have at all of our tabling events.
• Sarah will get printed materials to Evelyn before she leaves in a few days. If she is unable would someone else be willing to get them to her?

December House Party: Christina and Nickole
• The band, Counterfeit Cash will perform
• More details will come as they plan. Possibly will be at Christina's House

TABLING Needs:
- When we are gathering contact lists, we should have separate checkboxes for what people might be interested in. Some suggestions are: newsletter, upcoming events, "getting involved," Genocide Awareness Week, and Darfur. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to be on our working listserve.
- Sarah should get info from OHRC for tables, and also get info from PCGA to Evelyn (OHRC)
- We should get together a 3-fold handout on Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness!
 Sarah will email the info she has on the other handouts to KTJ, and KTJ can put it together.

COMMUNITIES UNITED TO SAVE DARFUR
- Everyone should sign-up with this!
- We have 16 people signed-up with it, and the majority of the people are new to Portland Coalition for Genocide Awareness! Several people are eager to be active in the area!
- Great way to get the word out, get people active, and network
Sign-up at: Link


GENOCIDE AWARENESS WEEK:
• Dates:
o Ursula and KTJ suggest starting the week on the 14th and ending the 19th (Earth Day is on the 22nd, which is hard to compete with)
o We should still be flexible, depending on if we can get great events scheduled close to those dates

• Subcommittees:
o We need to start deciding what subcommittees we will dedicate our time to, to ensure things get done
o We should recruit help for these subcommittees
o We can be on more than one subcommittee as long as you think you can contribute. You can always help a subcommittee without being part of it! We are great resources for each other!
 Nickole will head the March 1st Thursday Subcommittee to plan the art exhibit/fundraiser held at the City Hall.
• Anyone who wants to help plan the art exhibit at City Hall in March should contact Nickole at: nlcheron@pdx.edu
 Rachel would like to be on the Conference Day subcommittee
 Ursula will head the Media subcommittee
 Cheryl will head the efforts to tie-in City Council and officially recognize GAW. She will also write the proclamation.
 KTJ will head(? Or be on?) the subcommittee for Outreach and Fundraising
 Anna (a friend of Rachel) will be organizing an Art auction
 Sarah and Clare will work to have art exhibits in different parts of the town, like they did last year.

• Other subcommittees (This is not an exhaustive or perfect list!):
o Author/Book-related events
o Film Night
o Mariam Matossian's performance
o PR
o Conference (? If Rachel does not want to head)
o Speakers
o "Camp Darfur"
o School outreach
o Others…
• Oregon Holocaust Resource Center is already organizing the production of a play, "Address Unknown" to start after Yom Hashoah (begins sundown of April 15th), and will probably show at least 2-3 times. PERFECT TIMING!

• Mariam Matossian is excited to come perform in Portland. Sarah has spoken with her over the phone and many emails. Still need someone who knows how to plan concerts to help!

• Rachel will contact someone she knows from Pacific Crest about a senior project being done on genocide in the Congo

• Samantha Power: we should see if she will come. Sarah already tried, and Ursula will follow-up. According to her website, Samantha Power will be at U of O only a couple weeks before, so maybe she could come up afterward?

Other notes:

- There are two authors in the area who are Cambodian Genocide survivors. We should try to get them to be involved.

- Each year OHRC does an art and writing contest. There are many wonderful pieces from previous years that can be available for exhibits.

- Rachel will contact Uganda speakers (? I don't know what I meant by this.)

- Sarah will send lists of partners/organizations we have worked with to KTJ

- Ursula suggested a great new internet tool, "Backpack" that could be the best way for us to plan things and stay on track with each other. It is free and you can have images, checklists, calendars, to-do lists and other planning tools. Would people be willing to use it? http://backpackit.com/

- OHRC will have speakers available for GAW!

- We should put postings on Craigslist, CNRG and others

- We might need to update our website

- We should find someone to help us do graphics/design

- Sarah will email Ursula contact info from Oregonian, info from PCGA printed materials to Cheryl and KTJ, and the Cambodian authors' names to Cheryl

- We should contact the different colleges/universities to see if they would plan events and/or get involved in some way:

o Pacific University
o Linnfield
o George Fox University
o PSU
o PCC
o Lewis & Clark
o Reed
o Concordia
o U of P
o Art Institute
o PNCA
o Others…


I will start putting together a list of all the different tasks people have signed-up for, and send it to everyone to see if they are correct. You can help me by emailing me sjstark@gmail.com and letting me know what you are interested in, if you haven't already.


WE NEED TO START RAISING FUNDS AND MAKING COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS! WE NEED TO START CONTACTING OTHER ORGANIZATIONS, GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS TO GET THEM INVOLVED!