Click Here For Story and Photos!

Maurice Martin Shares His Experience At The Distribution

The Girls Think Tank (GTT) is proud to announce that Jennifer Douglas has accepted the position of Executive Director. Under the direction of GTT’s Board of Directors and Advisory Board, and in collaboration with community partners and members, Douglas has primary responsibility for the execution of GTT’s overall mission as well as daily operations. “The hiring of Jennifer as our first Executive Director signals an incredible turning point for our organization – we are poised to soar in 2010, expanding our programs and reach,” said GTT’s founder and president, Rachel Jensen.

Click Here To Read All About Jen!

Jen Douglas, Our New Executive Director!

CLICK HERE for the link to the petition!

As many of you know, the Girls Think Tank has teamed up with several individuals and groups to form a Coalition on Homelessness in San Diego. Our current goal is to get public restrooms and water fountains downtown. Many of us take for granted these simple necessities that are present in our daily lives; however, if you take a look around you’ll notice that San Diego is a ‘world city’ that lacks these basic facilities that so many other places maintain.

As such, the Coalition has drafted a resolution to recognize access to drinking water and bathrooms as a fundamental human right. From the resolution, we have generated a petition to be signed by any San Diego resident.

Our goal for the petition is to collect 5,000 SIGNATURES BY APRIL 10, 2010. We will then present the signatures to the San Diego City Council, and educate them as to how many San Diegans feel strongly about this issue.

CLICK HERE for the link to the petition!

The entries can be confidential at your election. It only takes a minute of your time, but the change it can achieve is invaluable. Please circulate the link to all of your friends, post it as a note or even a status on facebook!

Additionally, we need your help to get more signatures at an upcoming event! CLICK HERE to find out where you can meet up with us to help collect signatures!

Thank you for your doing your part! We’ll keep you posted as we progress!

GTT

The holiday season for some homeless military veterans in San Diego brightens on December 16, 2009, with the distribution of 150 Winter Survival Backpacks, filled with hats, gloves, toiletries, blankets, and food, along with donated clothing, books, and home-baked treats.

The nonprofit Girls Think Tank (GTT) put together the 4th annual event, recruiting volunteers and donors from around the county, as a way to give back to veterans. GTT event organizer Amlyu Weas said, “with the Winter Survivor Backpack project, Girls Think Tank and its supporters are able to show thanks to military veterans who have served our nation and given of themselves. As President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, ‘as we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.’ ”

In a statement about the event, U.S. Representative Bob Filner of San Diego said, “It is imperative we take care of our homeless veterans all year around especially in the cold winter months.” Filner is chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

The event happens at 6:15 p.m., outside the veterans winter shelter, located on Sports Arena Boulevard, behind Goodwill, 3663 Rosecrans, in the Loma Portal area. The shelter, which opened December 9th and operates for 120 days, houses and provides services for 150 male veterans. The City of San Diego program is operated by the Veterans Village of San Diego.

In November, GTT gave out Winter Survival Backpacks outside the winter shelter downtown and has distributed approximately 1000 backpacks since the project began four years ago. Individuals and organizations are encouraged to collect used clothing for upcoming GTT events this winter.

Girls Think Tank started in 2006 when local attorney Rachel Jensen, tired of idly passing by a homeless neighbor, gathered girlfriends for a dinner party and brainstormed solutions. They decided to start Girls Think Tank, with a theme of empowerment and individual action to make a difference in our community. A $20 donation, 1 hour of time: microjustice – like microcredit, hands-on and direct – is the Girls Think Tank model. The new GTT Homeless Coalition will launch a Basic Dignity campaign in 2010. The Coalition includes GTT members, social service and homeless groups, places of worship, businesses, residents, and homeless persons. For more information about GTT and the Winter Backpack Survival project, email girlsthinktank@gmail.com or visit GirlsThinkTank.org. GTT is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in San Diego.

Greetings Thinkers!

We are gearing up for our 4th Annual donation drive for San Diego’s homeless and need your help.  Would you consider putting up a bin up at work, your child’s school, neighborhood coffee shop, or place of worship for donations such as gently-used sleeping bags, blankets, tents, tote bags, warm clothing, shoes, new socks or undies, beanies, gloves, toiletries, feminine products, and non-perishable foods?  We can send you a flyer to post and are happy to arrange pick ups for any donations collected.  Let us know by emailing girlsthinktank@gmail.com.   

Upcoming Schedule for Distributing Winter Survival Packs to Homeless Community

We need your helping hands in getting the much-needed supplies out to the streets!  Please join us at one of these events:

• Looking for a hands-on service project for you and your family to help give back this holiday weekend?  Meet us at 2 pm on Saturday Nov. 28th at corner of 16th St. and Island Ave. downtown.  We will distribute Winter Survival Packs, serve pizza, and take surveys of people living on the streets to see if they have access to the basics (water, food, shelter, toilets, etc.) in San Diego. 
• Help us honor our homeless veterans this holiday season!  Meet us at 5:45 pm on Wednesday Dec. 16th in the lobby of 655 W. Broadway to help load up and car pool to the winter vet shelter located behind Goodwill in Point Loma (3663 Rosecrans St.).  We will distribute Packs, books, other critical supplies, and would love to bring home baked cookies if we have volunteers to make them again this year. 

Email girlsthinktank@gmail.com for more details or directions.  Let us know if you can bring hot food or other supplies.  Last year, homemade brownies brought BIG smiles to the faces of the vets.  

GTT Coalition on Homelessness

We are building a coalition of individuals, city officials, community leaders, and organizations who share a vision of a city that cares for and responds to the needs of the homeless.  We are planning a campaign kick off for citywide access to the most basic needs – water and toilets.  Please join us Thursday, Dec. 3rd at 6 pm at the law firm of Coughlin Stoia, 655 W. Broaway, 19th floor.  Pizza will be provided.  Please RSVP by emailing girlsthinktank@gmail.com.    

We look forward to seeing you this Winter!

Your Friends at GTT

GTT and the Homeless Coalition are organizing to bring bathroom facilities and clean drinking water to the homeless residents of San Diego. Now, Chase Community Giving is offering a chance to add $25,000 to that effort, making it possible for Girls Think Tank to continue it’s mission of micro-justice.

If you are on Facebook, you can help can help us with our effort! All you have to do is follow these steps:

1. Click on the Chase Community Giving box above
2. Click on Allow (As Chase says, they will not solicit you, this is only for voting)
3. Become a Fan (Again, just for the voting; you can “Remove Me” later)
4. On the page is a search. Enter Girls Think Tank. It should appear in the drop down box, and select it.
5. Then click to Vote!
6. Post on your wall to get your friends to vote (you will be prompted after voting)

Your VOTE can make a difference and help us create a community where all people have access to bathrooms and clean drinking water.  So VOTE- and tell all your friends to vote- for Girls Think Tank.

Microactivism. The hands-on kind. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the Girls Think Tank and we are a collective of women (and men) who do not sit around and arm-chair weep about the problems of the world or our community. Tired of idly passing by a homeless neighbor, our founder gathered the girls, hosted a dinner party and brainstormed action. Over bottles of wine, the tank was formed. The empowerment of women around a dinner table, calling on the skills of our gender – our compassion, mothering, leadership, resources, power, connections; combined – has changed the fabric of our community. We have magnified a collective voice and put a face on homelessness. We are expanding to combat the epidemic of violence against women, using the same wisdom of the collective. Some members focus internationally, some in our backyard, but the lessons we learn are the power of one. Individual action making a difference. A $20 donation, an hour of time. We don’t turn the other cheek because we are small in numbers, we don’t ignore the issues because we don’t have a multi-million dollar budget, indeed, we have had no budget to speak of at all. But our model has required none – only empowerment of each others’ dreams for a better world. We support each other in making things right. We create a safe place to speak up about injustice and utter words like “mass rape”. Microjustice, like microcredit, hands-on and direct, is our model. At the end of the day, we have created a hundred winter survival backpacks for our homeless neighbors and handed them out. We are lithe and fast, mobilizing as needed. Whether in San Diego or Sudan, women coming together over the dinner table make a difference. Our success story is not grandiose but every day, common and growing. We get requests from around the world by women who want to start chapters in their communities. Aren’t we not a world of micro-communities, banded together through empowerment of each over, a collective voice breaking through the silence? What a better world we will be.