Thank you for making our Second Annual Community Picnic (Think Gather Feed) in Balboa Park a huge success!  Because of all the support of our amazing volunteers, supporters, performers, speakers, and co-sponsors, we fed 400 people at the picnic and got great input on the needs of folks with inadequate housing in San Diego.  

To celebrate our fabulous volunteers and supporters, we invite you all to a VIP reception on Thursday, November 20th at 6 pm, at the law firm of Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins, 655 W. Broadway, Suite 1900, in downtown San Diego where we will provide drinks and food.  At 7 pm, we will launch our Winter Survival Pack and Baby Bag project, assembling the packs and bags to help keep folks warm on the streets of San Diego this winter.

If you can’t make it to this assembly, look out for our full schedule for this winter’s homeless outreach project which we will be circulating soon.

 

Would you be willing to put a bin up at work for donations?  We’re looking for sleeping bags, blankets, backpacks, tote bags, warm clothing, shoes, coats, beanies, gloves, and non-perishable foods. Also we’d appreciate new onesies, undies, diapers, and baby wipes.  Click here for a flyer you can post nearby the bin and/or circulate to your colleagues, friends and families. 

 

Hope to see you this winter!!

The Girls Think Tank encourages everyone to get out and voice their choice today by exercising their fundamental right to vote.  Regardless of who you are and what your life circumstances, today is your day to stand up and be heard! 

“Election Day is the great equalizer. It is the one day where if all was right in our democracy, it would not matter if a person is rich, poor, black, white, educated or not, we all would have the same amount of power.” — Donita Judge, Ohio staff attorney, Advancement Project, August 13, 2008.

Follow this link to find out where you can vote and happy election day 2008!!  http://www2.sdcounty.ca.gov/rov/Eng/Epolling_query.asp

Title: GTT Ally Brigitte Hosts Monday Night Hour of Power: Energy Healing and Creativity Coaching
Location: 3361 4th Avenue, San Diego, CA 92103
Description: Join Brigitte for a mini-treatment (15 minute session) of energetic healing with emphasis on the heart center and creating a new vision for yourself, allowing that which no longer serves you to be released. Enjoy combination of healing methods including Reiki and the Yuen Method. The Yuen Method deals with the core issues of any mental, physical, emotional, psychological block or stagnation.  Service by donation.  For more information contact Brigitte at 619-852-5773 or contactbrigitte@yahoo.com.

Start Time: 17:00
Date: 2008-11-10
End Time: 19:00

Join us for a community picnic on Sunday, October 12, 2008, from Noon to 4 p.m. in Balboa Park (6th Ave north of Laurel Street).  This year’s theme is “Local Voices for Community Solutions” to poverty and homelessness.

 

At the picnic, we’re gathering our members, families and friends to break bread with our homeless neighbors; hear great speakers like long-time homeless advocate Congressman Bob Filner, street guru “Waterman” David Ross, and Shakti Rising’s Shannon Thompson; enjoy performances by local artists including our own Corina Rose, Terry Matsuoka, the Super Sonic Samba School, and DJ Quist; and participate in family games.  The League of Women Voters will be registering voters for the upcoming elections to get out the “street vote” and we will hold small group “story circles” about the issues particularly affecting the poor and homeless in our community.

 

Your $10 minimum donation will provide BBQ lunch for you and a person in need.  Every penny raised will go directly toward keeping folks warm on San Diego’s streets this winter.  We’re raising money for our winter survival backpacks, which will be loaded (as they have the past 2 winters) with sleeping bags or fleece blankets, knit caps, gloves, socks, ponchos, toiletries, water, non-perishable foods, and laminated resource and phone cards to put people on the streets in contact with people who can help them get back on their feet.  This year, we are adding GTT baby bags — homemade bags with baby wipes, pacifiers, infant bibs, infant socks, receiving blanket, wash cloths, baby bottles, cream or ointment, baby wash/shampoo and onesies for expectant or new mothers.

 

Co-sponsoring organizations include Foundation for Change, Shakti Rising, Lotus Outreach, The Resolved Church, the League of Women Voters, Progressive San Diego, and the Isaiah Project.  We’re looking for volunteers to help get the word out on the street and lend a helping hand on the day of, whether it’s flipping burgers (veggy too!), registering voters, or helping to clean up afterwards.  Working together, we can create community-based solutions to poverty and homelessness!

 

BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE TO THE GTT COMMUNITY PICNIC! 

 

Our monthly meeting is next Thurs., Sept. 18th at 7 pm at Audra’s home, 3450 2nd Ave, Unit 25, San Diego 92103 (in Hillcrest/Banker’s Hill at corner of 2nd and Upas).  We’ll be discussing issues facing low-income seniors in San Diego, and Melinda Bell (volunteer coordinator) from Jewish Family Service will speak about the challenges for elderly as they struggle to make ends meet.  With loved ones gone or living across the country, they are often forgotten by the community they live in.  Melinda will discuss some programs that the JFS has to serve San Diego seniors, and we will discuss/brainstorm ways that GTT can help out in our community.  Bring food or drink to share, or even just your thoughts and ideas!

Please rsvp by emailing us at girlsthinktank@gmail.com if you’re planning to attend so we can plan accordingly.  If you need directions, call Audra at 619.793.4668.

Our monthly meeting is next Thurs., Sept. 18th at 7 pm at Audra’s home, 3450 2nd Ave, Unit 25, San Diego 92103 (in Hillcrest/Banker’s Hill at corner of 2nd and Upas).  We’ll be discussing issues facing low-income seniors in San Diego, and Melinda Bell (volunteer coordinator) from Jewish Family Service will speak about the challenges for elderly as they struggle to make ends meet.  With loved ones gone or living across the country, they are often forgotten by the community they live in.  Melinda will discuss some programs that the JFS has to serve San Diego seniors, and we will discuss/brainstorm ways that GTT can help out in our community.  Bring food or drink to share, or even just your thoughts and ideas!

Please rsvp by emailing us at girlsthinktank@gmail.com if you’re planning to attend so we can plan accordingly.  If you need directions, call Audra at 619.793.4668.

What: GTT’s Night at the Art Museum
When: July 31, 2008 at 7 pm
Where: San Diego Art Museum (www.sdmart.org)

The GTT will support women in the arts by checking out the San Diego Museum of Art’s exhibitions on Georgia O’Keeffe and Eleanor Antin before picnicking in Balboa Park.  The museum is featuring two exhibitions and a “Screen on the Green” event which will feature the “Shop Around The Corner.”  We’ll meet out on the lawn at 7 pm and eat while collecting donations for the International Rescue Committee/VISTA.  Bring a dish/beverage/snacks to share and a donation if you can! 

DRIVE FOR International Rescue Committee/VISTA: GTT asks folks to donate items for tutoring kits for the IRC’s work  with refugees in San Diego who are learning English.  The IRC suggests donations of pencils, pencil sharpener, pens, glue sticks, scissors, 24 crayon boxes, 3×5 cards, notebooks, rubber bands, name tags & plastic covering, erasers, large Ziploc bags, coloring books, books, construction paper, white board markers, 1 inch binders, 8 pack of binder dividers, backpacks, and first aid kits.

In the winter of 2007, GTT passed out some 350 Winter Survival Backpacks to displaced folks, complete with a quality sleeping bag or blanket, beanie hat, gloves, socks, laminated resource card with numbers for different social services, hygiene products, hand-knitted scarves, water, flashlight, and non-perishable food items. We met hundreds of people on the streets of San Diego who have slipped through the cracks or fallen below that thin line separating the working poor who have housing and those without. We met elderly women in wheelchairs, disabled veterans, teenagers, pregnant women, families, and small children, all of whom we greeted with some warm gear and warm hearts.

Some of our work was documented by Channel 10 News reporter Juliette Vara in a news spot that aired in late November 2007. Click here to see the Channel 10 news spot.

Yvette de la Garza from the San Diego Union-Tribune and SignOnSanDiego.com chronicled our distribution work at the Neil Good Day Center. Check out the San Diego Union-Tribune’s video here.

On June 1, 2007, GTT hosted a happy hour and open mic at the Kava Lounge to ask San Diegans: “What Do You Think?” We rapped about the myths and facts of homelessness, local problems and solutions, and how to get involved in the community. We raised funds for our ongoing homeless outreach program and started drumming up support for our first annual GTT community picnic. Most of all we had a great time hangin’ out and getting to know other people who are thinkin’ and doin’ about the problems they see in San Diego instead of just complainin’.

In the coldest months of 2006, we spent a lot of time pounding the pavement of San Diego’s city streets and meeting many who spend their days and nights there. We had recently come up with the idea for the Winter Survival Packs and it was our first run at deciding what gear to include, how to order it, how to assemble the packs, where to go once we had them ready, and to whom to give them.

In this process, there were a lot of good laughs, but also a lot of harsh realities. Things like giving someone a pair of warm gloves only to see her still shivering in the dark cold night as we drove away humming to our favorite songs in our warm cars to return to our centrally-heated homes. We saw the tremendous humanity in people who were written off long ago. We witnessed more generosity and community amongst strangers who had nothing to give than we ordinarily saw in those who had much. We met a 4-day-old baby who was born into a homeless family, a 70-year-old veteran confined to a wheelchair, folks dumped by hospitals just hours before, and runaway teenagers who were pregnant, homeless, and scared. Click here for the stories of our journeys on the streets of San Diego in the winter of 2006.