Good Morning ,

 

In this edition:

Ten Thousand Villages

Operation Cornbread

Share Your Share

Western Regional Advocacy Project

New Barter System

Sit/Lie Update

Hoedown

 

Ten Thousand Villages First Thursday: Benefit for Sisters Tomorrow, June 4th

 

Ten Thousand Villages, one of the world's largest fair trade organizations and a founding member of the International Fair Trade Association, will be giving 20% of all sales Thursday, June 4th from 6 pm to 8 pm to Sisters Of The Road! Come to their Pearl District store at 938 NW Everett Street and you will find exquisite jewelry, elegant rugs, delightful home decor and personal accessories, all handcrafted by artisans in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East who are ensured a fair price for their work.

At Sisters, we support Ten Thousand Villages' Vision that One day all artisans in the developing countries will earn a fair wage, be treated with dignity and respect and be able to live a life of quality. Please come out June 4th to show your support of Sisters, worldwide artisans and fair trade goods. Thank you Portland Ten Thousand Villages!

 

 

Operation Cornbread in Full Swing: Donate today and see your gift matched 2 to 1

The hot days of summer have arrived, and while many people will be spending the upcoming months on fun activities and family vacations, our customers at Sisters continue to long for a nutritious, tasty meals (including our famous rice, beans 'n' cornbread); secure, clean, public restrooms; free infant supplies and feminine hygiene items; the opportunity to perform dignified barter work; and a safe place with community to spend the day.

Summer is typically a time of low giving, and this year the need is especially high. To fill the increased need we are seeing, Sisters is holding our Operation Cornbread summer giving campaign. Here's how you can help us keep the cornbread comin' this summer:

Donate to Sisters. All individual, business and faith community contributions in May, June, and July will be matched 2:1 by our Operation Cornbread Matching Grant.

Become a Sustaining Member! We currently have 346 monthly donors who give to Sisters as Sustaining Members. Please join this group of generous donors by signing up for a monthly deduction from your bank account or credit card. Our goal is to add 30 new sustaining members to our program this summer.

If you have already made a contribution to Operation Cornbread, thank you for your help to keep the cornbread comin' over the summer months!

For more information on donating, go to www.sistersoftheroad.org or contact our Development Assistant at 503-222-5694 ext. 12 or by e-mail. 

Share Your Share! Help Sisters' kitchen provide organic produce to our customers

 

The Kitchen Team at Sisters Of The Road has committed to building a sustainable food base for our customers. Sisters does not believe it is acceptable to provide food from the bottom of the food chain to our customers. At Sisters, it has never been enough to simply fill empty bellies. We must care for each other and for our planet by making certain our food is wholesome, nourishing, and environmentally responsible. Healthy, nutritious and sustainable food is a human right. Please help Sisters move toward this goal.

 

How you can help:

1) Buy an extra Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share & donate it to Sisters.
2) Share your CSA share with us.
3) Help Sisters buy direct CSA shares. We are now considering buying commercial CSA shares. We could use your financial help to make this a reality!

 

Basic questions about CSAs? You can read more about them at Wikipedia or about Portland CSAs The Portland Area CSA Coalition.

 

If you are interested in donating all or a portion of a CSA share, please contact Kitchen Co-managers Bob & Nina by e-mail or 503-222-5694 ext 24.

Support the vital work of WRAP

 

Sisters Of The Road is a founding member of the Western Regional Advocacy Project.

 

The Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) is grounded in the experiences of those who live with and work on homeless and poverty issues every day. WRAP's mission is to build a movement that:

1. exposes the root causes of homelessness

2. challenges unjust housing and economic development policies

3. fights the criminalization of poverty.

 

We are rooted in the philosophy that each of us has something to teach the other and each of us has something to learn. We believe that people become leaders by listening, researching, and responding to what the members of our communities identify as their primary issues.

 

Goals

• To unite local social justice organizations and build a movement that is inclusive and shares power with all members of the community.
• To hold the federal government responsible and accountable for the restoration of affordable housing funding and the protection of poor and homeless people's rights.
• To develop with the community effective and socially just solutions to all barriers that prevent the ending of homelessness.
• To ensure the policies and priorities of local, state and federal governments are grounded in the common truths of a majority of poor and homeless people.

 

Become a member of WRAP to support this vitally important work! Make your secure donation here and/or sign up for WRAP's monthly e-newsletter to stay up-to-date with the great work of WRAP and its member organizations:

 

Building Opportunity for Self-Sufficiency

Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco

Los Angeles Community Action Network

Real Change

Sisters Of The Road

Street Roots

Street Spirit

New Computerized Barter System

 

Before Sisters opened in 1979, co-founders Genny Nelson and Sandy Gooch interviewed hundreds of residents in the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood and listened to the needs of the community. They were told that people wanted a place to eat hot, nourishing meals that they could earn by working and a place where they could be safe from the violence of the streets. Sisters' Barter Program was created from this input.

Both customers and staff have identified the need to computerize our Barter Accounts. Each record is currently a single, hard paper copy kept in a binder with hundreds of other records, and is used to document both debits and credits to a customer's account. A floor manager may be using a binder to record one customer's work, while the cashier needs to record the meal purchased by a different customer. This leads to slow lines, inaccurate record keeping and sometimes even lost records. Keeping accurate records of customers' barter credit shows respect for how much we value their work.

 

Thanks to a generous grant from the Employees Community Fund of Boeing Portland we will be installing the long needed computerized Barter system in August 2009! This new system will be used much like a credit card machine with each person who barters at the Cafe issued a magnetic strip card along with an account number. When adding to or subtracting from an account the person will simply swipe their card. We'll keep a second set of cards on hand in case someone loses theirs, and we will happily issue a replacement card for $1.50.

 

Come down and check out the new system in late August, get signed up to do a barter job and see for yourself if it works better than the old system. You can also support Sisters and the work we do in a lot of other ways. Check out our website for upcoming activities, volunteer opportunities and ways to give.

Sit/Lie Update

 

On Wednesday May 6th, Portland's City Council voted to temporarily extend the Sit/Lie Ordinance (14A.50.030). This means that the new sunset deadline for the ordinance will be October 23, 2009. We have lots to do to organize our community before then, and we hope you join us in calling on Portland to stand up for the rights of all in our community and get rid of Sit/Lie! Stay tuned to our Take Action page and Action Info List for more ways to get involved.