The event started with a really great routine from the Jessie White Tumblers--they fly high! And IL Secretary of State Jessie White himself was there, in a jump suit, starting the whole event off with a heartfelt message of peace and the power of youth and individual citizens to make a difference.

We had really great speakers from communities affected by genocide, including Holocaust, Armenian, Cambodian, Bosnia, & Southern Sudan with Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls. His presence drew in a lot of media. Here's a radio story & see below for more links (http://podcast.wbbm780.com/wbbm/725950.mp3).

We had a very moving speaker from Darfur, Fatima Haroun, who has spoken at other rallies on the east coast. State elected officials were on hand, including the author of the IL divestment law, Senator Jacqueline Collins, and her colleague in the House, IL Rep. Greg Harris, who shared a portion of a message from Senator Durbin, who could not be with us because he was going to Sudan! Ben Prochazka from national Save Darfur HQ in DC came and offered his "Why China & What To Do" message.

We had an Olympic Torch Procession, with Luol Deng holding the torch at the start of the procession and the other speakers following, surrounded by children holding colorful flags, evoking the colorful garments of the women of Darfur. When the procession returned to the stage, Deng handed the torch off. As each of the speakers addressed the crowd, a refugee from Darfur or Southern Sudan stood with her/him and held the torch. Deng was the last speaker. He did not introduce himself as a basketball player but as a fellow refugee. He handed the torch to Mohamed Abdelrhman Kauda, the President of the IL Darfur Association, who accepted it and thanked the community for their support.

Our own Steve Dishler closed the ceremony with words from US politician Edward Everett: "I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the grace of God, I will."

We had great music by recently signed artists Trevor Menear and his band. He did a cut for "Instant Karma" called "John Sinclair." (Check him out on myspace or itunes or youtube.) We handed out his CD sampler, got over 200 signatures on letters to Hu Jintao, got signatures on our banner that will be in DC for the final leg of the torch relay, Instant Karma posters, Human Rights Watch info sheets, Team Darfur sweatbands, official event t-shirts, etc., and collected lots of donations (an unintended result of the giveaways).

It was great to have the crowd lining up for ice cream, signing and collecting stuff all at once while the Trevor Menear band played a rockin' set. It felt festive and hopeful.


ADDITIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE
Here are some of the news reports that mentioned the Chicago event(though I could not find our own NBC-5 coverage). The use of the wire services really helped & the presence of Luol Deng made the story spread across the country.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/2007-10-22-notes_N.htm
http://www.wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37327&Itemid=49
http://www.morrisdailyherald.com/articles/2007/10/22/state_news/751zdarfur.txt
http://www.wnct.com/midatlantic/nct/sports.apx.-content-articles-NCT-2007-10-21-0014.html
http://podcast.wbbm780.com/wbbm/725950.mp3
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/chi-22rowboldnamesoct22,1,5164877.story
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/sports/20071022_Deng_and_Darfur.html
http://www.juf.org/news/local.aspx?id=27562

Our Dream for Darfur event was a huge success, thanks to all who volunteered and participated! I would like to thank our Indy Save Darfur group for the countless hours of planning! Thank you to students at Lawrence Central, Broadripple, Brebeuf, Cathedral and Westfield High Schools, and to IU, Purdue and IUPUI.
This isn't the end though. Our group must continue to act!
I will post our next meeting time in the next week or so. We welcome new members. We would also like to help students get Save Darfur chapters started at their schools and continue to work with students who have groups going (Amnesty, STAND, etc).
Check out www.indystar.com to read about yesterday's event.
Nuvo will be posting a video of the event on You Tube in the coming week :)

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