Virginia Commonwealth University students: Boycott Aramark on May 1st
The Living Wage Campaign at VCU is calling for all Virginia Commonwealth University students to boycott Aramark- meaning, all campus dining locations- tomorrow, May 1st. They hope to demonstrate to VCU administration the ability of the student body to cause revenue losses, should the institution persist in allowing gross underpayment of Aramark employees after the upcoming contract renegotiation.
This is an exercise in mobilization, rather than an attempt at financial divestment;; because meal plans are pre-paid, refusing to “swipe,” or use meal plan blocks, will not ultimately affect how much money an individual student pays into the dining plan system.
Food Not Bombs will be providing free vegan chili, rice, and salad at Monroe Park at 1pm. Free to all.
11:28 am • 30 April 2013 • 34 notes
Vote for RVAFARMS to help them receive $10,000 in startup funds, to build an urban farm in a Richmond food desert.
Every single one of you should vote and reblog. This is incredibly low-effort and could be unfathomably high-impact.
RVAFARMS is competing in i.e’s annual startup competition, to win $10,000 to construct an urban farm in one of Richmond’s dozen food deserts. A food desert is a place in which the only food available for sale is convenience store fare and fast food, if that- there are no grocery stores, and to reach a grocery store, the frequently impoverished or elderly residents must travel long distances. From their description:
“RVA Farms will operate an urban farm in the city of Richmond, Virginia that sells fresh organic fruits and vegetables in food deserts. Our urban farm will feature hoop houses, an outdoor demonstration garden and learning pavilion. We will be Richmond’s first urban farm B-Corporation.
Richmond has 12 USDA designated food deserts, and a poverty level of 25%. RVA Farms will market to these communities using pop-up farmer’s markets that accept SNAP and WIC, culinary arts classes and other culturally relevant programming. We will also market to local restaurants, grocery stores and feature a CSA for the city.”
These folks are legitimate- they’re not gentrifiers, they know what they’re talking about (one of the key organizers is Duron Chavis, who works with the McDonough Community Garden), they explicitly connect the struggle for food access to the struggle for black communities to have economic power, and they’re really, truly needed in this city. They deserve your vote.
[[If you get an error message saying you’ve already voted, don’t worry, the website people have explained that you’re just getting the wrong message and your vote will be counted anyway.]]
12:00 pm • 27 March 2013 • 32 notes
Week Schedule: February 25th - March 3rd
Ongoing
National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon; Team Kate Bush, Richmond VA: dates pending.
National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon; Richmond Clinic Defense team: dates pending.
National Abortion Access Bowl-a-Thon; Team Totally Awesome, Richmond VA: dates pending.
Virginia SPARC Fund Drive for Jailhouse Lawyer Manuals and Commisary Communications Materials: 1/18 - 3/30
McDonough Community Garden Fund Drive: 1/15 - Earth Day, 4/22
Mountain Justice Spring Break, Virginia: 3/1-3/10
Monday 2/25
Consignment Shop Benefit for Art 180
12-1pm: Mediating Feminisms: Feminist Scholarship and Praxis in the 21st Century, or Doing Work that ‘Counts’
2-4pm: Jail Mail Prisoner Writing
6-9pm: Richmond City Council: Papers on keeping hens and eliminating employment barriers for people convicted of felonies.
6:30-7:30pm: GED Classes at Fulton Neighborhood Resource Center
7:30pm: Screening of “Cafeteria Man”
7-9pm: WMMT’s Calls from Home for Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee Inmates
Tuesday 2/26
Consignment Shop Benefit for Art 180
12:30-2pm: Tech Tuesday Q&A at the Main Library
6:30-7:30pm: Free Safety, Awareness, and Self Defense Training at the Main Library
Wednesday 2/27
Consignment Shop Benefit for Art 180
10-11am: HIV 101 for Professionals
1:30-3pm: Job Seekers Preparation Class
6:30-7:30pm: GED Classes at Fulton Neighborhood Resource Center
7-9pm: Screening of “Iron Island” with the VCU Iranian Culture Club
10pm: Women-Only Bike Ride
Thursday 2/28
Consignment Shop Benefit for Art 180
Submission Deadline for the Love Locked Down Creative Writing Contest
5-8pm: Screening: “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners”
5:30-6:30: rePHRAME (Residents of Public Housing in Richmond Against Mass Evictions) Meeting
6-8pm: Oral History Celebration
7-8pm: Richmond NAACP Branch Meeting
Friday 3/01
5-7:30pm: Peer Support with the Mindful Liberation Project
6:30-8:30pm: “Colorism in the Black Community,” Prof. Morgan Maxwell, VCU
7-10pm: Fundraiser for Abortion Access Bowl-a-thon Team, Team Totally Awesome
Saturday 3/02
8:30-10:30am: Anti-AIPAC (Israel lobby) Grassroots Advocacy Training, DC
9-11am: Richmond Clinic Defense
9am-12pm:Saturday Social on Community Health
10am-1pm: Screenprinting Day at the Wingnut
11am-12:30pm: Urban Agriculture Learning Series
Sunday 3/03
12:30-5pm: Richmond Food Not Bombs
12:30-2:30pm: Reproductive Justice Community Conversation
2:30-4:30pm: Craft Making Day with Abortion Access Bowl-a-thon Team, Team Totally Awesome
3-4pm: Expose AIPAC (Israel lobby) Mobilization and Street Protests, DC
10pm-1:45am: RFFP Fundraising Team Kate Bush Kick-Off Benefit and M3 Anniversary Celebration
4:55 pm • 24 February 2013 • 7 notes
One Billion Rising call for submissions for a feminist documentary.
“ONE BILLION RISING Documentary Call For Submissions
V-Day is creating a ONE BILLION RISING documentary project, and we are looking to include footage and high resolution photos of local events from all over the world.
If you filmed or photographed your event, we would love to see!
We will need the highest resolution files available shared with us via Dropbox. These can be RAW footage, edited pieces, single photographs or folders with multiple images.
Simply follow the instructions at our “Share Your One Billion Rising Media” page and add the Dropbox link of your material in the provided field.
If your event imagery is chosen for the final ONE BILLION RISING documentary, you will be notified and credited, so make sure to include your full name as you wish to be credited and your contact details!
ONE BILLION RISING was the largest global action in history to end violence against women and girls, and, with your help, the world will see inside the ONE BILLION RISING activities that took place all over the planet!
If you do not have access to Dropbox, please email film@vday.org”
See URL for more details.
2:37 pm • 24 February 2013 • 1 note
Mission statement and developments.
Because I am planning some major expansions to Active-RVA, and because there have been a lot of new folks getting on board, I thought it would be salient to provide kind of a mission statement, for those of you just tuning in.
What is Active-RVA? What is it trying to accomplish?
Active-RVA is a means by which to compile activist and leftist events in and around the city of Richmond. It’s intended to make activism and activist spaces more accessible, less insular, and easier to get involved in.
One of the big problems in RVA activism, especially in radical circles, is that organizations often rely on social networks (organic and online) to proliferate news. This only really succeeds in getting the same 60-100 people out, it tends to create spaces that are homogeneous (especially racially), it fails to recruit inexperienced folks or account for their development as political actors, and it’s very alienating to people who don’t or can’t socialize heavily. Active-RVA is designed to give interested people the means to join efforts that they’re interested in, immediately, without the daunting and laborious process of navigating social scenes.
Execution
That’s where the social media comes in- it’s easier to engage with wider groups of people, and easier to share information, from a central online point. The Facebook, e-mail subscription, Google+, and (soon to be) Twitter accounts also serve to keep events circulating, rather than sitting static on the calendar hoping that someone will remember that it exists as a resource.
Planned Expansion
This model isn’t perfect, in that it appeals mostly to people who are Internet-savvy, and hence probably young, and people who have regular Internet access. The elderly and most homeless folks are left out. That’s where Active-RVA’s recent partnership with the Richmond Rag comes in: we’re working on a model to bring news of events to those demographics, also, via hard copy print.
We’ll be launching a second calendar, solely for communal events, very soon. This will be a central point by which to take advantage of collective, DIY, and free spaces around Richmond. Community events will be shared around the same way political events are.
In order to compile more accurate accessibility information for venues around Richmond, we will be organizing a survey soon.
We’ve obtained a new administrator, Will Carino, who’ll be working to update the calendar quickly (currently it’s updated only twice a week), and maintain the Google+ account. We’re looking for an additional manager to handle the Twitter feed. Up until several days ago, when Will got on board, the entire enterprise has been administered solely by Kat (who is speaking to you now, but using the collective we for stylistic purposes).
And finally, we are preparing to begin a serious publicity campaign, to expand use, and hence efficacy, of Active-RVA. The past eleven months have only been a trial run; we hit five hundred subscribers earlier this month, via various mediums, and think it’s time to step it up.
What you can do.
If you’d like to help in any or all of our expanding projects, message this account, or e-mail activerva@gmail.com. We need a number of tasks performed; some of them can be executed remotely on the computer, while some will require some legwork. We specifically need a Twitter manager, and someone to design a logo.
10:31 pm • 9 February 2013 • 3 notes
Mountain Justice Spring Break, Virginia
“We are excited to announce that for the third year in a row the RReNEW Collective and SAMS will be hosting Virginia Mountain Justice Spring Break from March 1-10, 2013 in the town of Appalachia, VA. During this weeklong event we will hear the stories of the Death cycle of coal, we will meet and support the folks working to build a better future for Appalachia, we will build our own skills as organizers and change agents, and along the way we’ll have fun, go hiking and put a little elbow grease into local service projects!”
Lodging and food will be provided, but you must first register here. The cost is on a sliding scale of $50-500 dollars. See the title link for more information.
5:51 pm • 8 February 2013
Richmond Clinic Defense Winter Orientation Meeting
On Sunday, January 27th, at 11am, at Xtra’s Cafe (3322-B West Cary Street, Richmond, Virginia 23221) Richmond Clinic Defense is holding its winter orientation. To join the event, you must first join the Clinic Defense Facebook group, available through the link.
Contact them at rvaclinicdefense@gmail.com should you have questions or comments.
7:51 pm • 19 January 2013 • 1 note
Claire Tuite on HB 1989, a bill to amend Virginia’s Earned Sentence Credit system
Below is a message from Richmonder Claire Tuite, who, by her persistence and conviction, got a bill sponsored and introduced to the 2013 Virginia General Assembly. HB 1989 is designed to reform Virginia’s system of determining how much of a felony sentence must be served. Virginia abolished parole for felons in 1995- now we have the Earned Sentence Credit system, which requires a minimum of 85% of the total sentence be served, regardless of good behavior or mitigating factors.
I posted Claire’s page of talking points on the bill a moment ago, which you can see here. Please share this widely.
Here is her message:
“Hi. My name is Claire. I may know some of you and others I look forward to meeting soon. I wanted to let you know about a bill that I have asked to be carried this session and is currently on its way to a House committee. The bill is HB 1989 and it serves to increase the number of sentence credits that incarcerated people can earn from 4.5 days out of every 30 days to 15 days out of every 30.
In other words, this would mean that people that were incarcerated for a non-violent felony could be released after serving no less than 50% of their sentence. It is currently required that felons serve no less than 85% of their total sentence, and the toll this takes on these people, their families, their friends, their careers, their communities and the Virginian economy is enormous. It does not mean that ALL would be released at 50% of their total sentence, but only that they could be, which is a MAJOR change.
Virginia’s current policies are quite sad and regressive at this point, especially when looking at the costs associated with the current lack of a reasonable early release policy. This is just ANOTHER serious consequence of the war on drugs and our modern incarceration implementation. I did not intend to make this a non violent only bill, but it is unfortunately the only way it could be carried in the current legislative climate. I want to be honest- this bill has very little possibility of passing, but it is time to apply pressure and energize by any tactic possible.
I am personally rather uncomfortable with the reform/legislative process, as I question reform as a revolutionary tactic. It is an internal struggle for me, so I am sharing that with you going forward, and I am assuming that many of you struggle with this as well. I don’t like this process as I am not trying to legitimize any form of imprisonment. I am not suggesting that a few tweaks solves anything. I do believe that any pressure adds to a much needed momentum and ALL tactics should be supported and pushed. If this bill was to pass by a miracle than it would cut down on our prison population tremendously.
I am including the information of the committee members that this bill will go to first, the Project Sunlight page so that the bill can be seen in full text (amendment for retroactivity not included yet, though it does exist), and the talking points that we are focusing on. This is going before the Police and Militia Committee, which is VERY conservative and not a good sign. However, they still take contact seriously. We need to email them and call them as much as possible before Friday. I need your help on this.
The committee is at 9am on Friday (01/18). It has not yet been assigned to a sub-committee, so please pay attention for alerts in case it does. Contact is best sooner than later for this reason. I ask that when calling that economic points (over social justice) be stressed, and the reason for this is purely tactical. The same goes for anyone that wants to speak to this bill. When speaking in person to the bill, members of organizations and people that have been personally affected (especially by economic strain on the family) will be best heeded. It helps a lot to have people speak, so if you can be there, please come. Also, if you want to stop by their offices’ this week, if time permits, in-person visits are very helpful. I appreciate your continued work and any support on this going forward.
Thank you so much! -Claire
Please review these links!
Full text of bill. Committee Members and their e-mails. Talking points.
Members and their phone numbers:
Chair: Del. Scott Lingamfelter (R-Woodbridge): 804-698-1031
Del. Ben Cline (R-Amherst): 804-698-1024
Del. James Edmunds (R-South Boston): 804-698-1060
Del. Matt Fariss (R-Rustburg): 804-698-1059
Del. Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax Station): 804-698-1041
Del. Todd Gilbert (R-Woodstock): 804-698-1015
Del. Chris Head (R-Roanoke): 804-698-1017
Sponsor: Del. Patrick Hope (D-Arlington): 804-698-1047
Del. Kaye Kory (D-Falls Church): 804-698-1038
Del. Lynwood Lewis (D-Accomac): 804-698-1000
Del. Alfonso Lopez (D-Arlington): 804-698-1049
Del. Don Merricks (R-Danville): 804-698-1016
Del. Will Morefield (R-North Tazewell): 804-698-1003
Del. Rick Morris (R-Carrollton): 804-698-1064
Del. Israel O’Quinn (R-Bristol): 804-698-1005
Del. Nick Rush (R-Christiansburg): 804-698-1007
Del. Beverly Sherwood (R-Winchester): 804-698-1029
Del. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax): 804-698-1044
Del. Roslyn Tyler (D-Jarratt): 804-698-1075
Del. Michael Webert (R-Marshall): 804-698-1018
Del. Tony Wilt (R-Harrisonburg: 804-698-1026
Del. Tommy Wright (R-Victoria): 804-698-1061”
11:50 pm • 14 January 2013 • 11 notes
