3 Anniversaries Fundraiser for MayDay Community Kitchen – link here!
Last week’s post about Omni history was really fun to write. It was great sharing some of those projects we got to help along. We’ve been weaving community networks for a while now and loving almost every minute of it.
I looked back in the file where I found Melanie Dietzel’s article last week and see another list you might like from just about exactly 20 years ago. This is an article for a 2009 newsletter or something. It lists some oldie but goodie Omni groups that some of y’all might remember.
These are all projects that lived their time and passed into history, but they were pretty fun while they lasted. Lots of Omni folks came to the Peace & Justice Heroes Awards dinners that Dick started. Remember those?
And the RePower Arkansas Project that Robert McAfee started in 2009 morphed into several other powerful environmental projects over time and helped Robert and other dedicated people build environmental networks that evolved into Citizens Climate Lobby / Citizens Climate League (the Arkansas affiliate) and is still plugging away to put a price on carbon, return a dividend to the people, and cut emissions massively. Check out CCL at this link:
A few of OMNI Center’s successes 2009:
Arkansas Peace & Justice Heroes Awards: since 2003 Omni has presented statewide awards to individuals and groups doing excellent work for peace and justice in Arkansas. Heroes have included youth work in Jonesboro, food pantries in Fort Smith, peace activism at St. Scholastica’s Monestary, women’s shelters in Fayetteville, and social justice work from Pine Bluff. Four awards are made annually.
Omni Book Forums: Periodic roundtables reviewing books on significant topics. Upcoming series in April involves 4 books, with 4 different presenters, related to protecting democracy.
Fayetteville Springfest: Annual city festival has been a good forum for Omni to present new ideas to an audience of 20,000 that may never hear of us otherwise. Last year’s theme was on global warming. This year’s theme is “Farm to Table: Sustainable Food for All.” Omni-organized collaborations with many different sustainability groups is an important part of the event.
Omni Month in Review/OMNI Vision: Abel Tomlinson, a talented Omni volunteer, organizes a monthly television forum on the local cable access tv station. They discuss issues and controversial topics of interest locally. He finds local experts and speakers to cover issues such as the local hillside tree ordinance, issues of over-development, poverty, homelessness, relations with the University of Arkansas, war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy, tax stimulus, and many other things. The program is well-done and well received.
Peace Leadership Forum: Goal of this group is to create leaders for the culture of peace. The mission statement says “We are expanding the peacebuilding community to our neighbors, friends, and the wider community to take leadership in the culture of peace.” With the cooperation of diversity-training group Human EQ, the first 3 months of 2009 will focus on reaching across the barriers of race, ethnicity, ability etc. that dog the footsteps of those who want to make good changes in society.
Repower Arkansas: In 2009 Robert McAfee, a skilled OMNI volunteer (who’s profession is climatology), organized a “road show” to present the facts about global warming, and ways Arkansas in particular will be affected, as well as ways Arkansans can thrive while we survive the effects of climate change. The Repower Arkansas Road Show has been presented in 16 towns, to over 1500 individuals all over the state, to rave reviews. OMNI cosponsors the project with The Climate Project, directed by Al Gore. Plans are to repeat the Roadshow in 2010.
May 30, 2009
When peace advocates were facing the Bush presidency and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars I’d never have imagined looking back and thinking life seemed simple then. Those wars had barely started when stories started moving quietly around about which peace groups had gotten late-night visits from men in black. We were too far from the halls of power to attract that kind of attention, but it was clearly meant to be chilling. That’s when the Department of Homeland Security was borrowed from WWII and deployed. That’s what authoritarian systems think is security, anyway.
What will the next 20 years bring, that we’ll look back at in amazement? 20 years will carry us up to the threshold where we might be much clearer about the fate of our planet and our climate. And ourselves.
It’s truly alarming … but there’s still time to repair some of the harm. New goals need to include thinking about what infrastructure can help our community become resilient enough to face down the challenges ahead. I hope every one of you Omni folk are putting your minds to that sense of preparedness. What can we do today that will make tomorrow better?
Here are two current Omni projects working for a different future. These two projects share a birthday month with Omni, and a mission to weave a world that works for all of us. KPSQ FM was born in May five years ago when we were awarded a radio broadcasting license from the FCC. After five years we’ve come a long way to provide listening created by local folks and widely diverse music that you won’t hear on most stations. 97.3 FM is our call, or www.kpsq.org to listen online. Thank you to Joe Newman who worked all those years to get this station off the ground and into the airwaves.
Also born in May, but just last year when covid started, is MayDay Community Kitchen, founded by Omni Board member Alex Tripodi. For the entire year MayDay volunteers have been whipping up 100 or more delicious meals a day at minimal cost for local people hit hard by the virus, losing their jobs because of it, or just down on their luck. They’ve also built an effective network of resources with the NWA Food Bank, TriCycle Farms, The St. James Baptist Food Distribution Project, Trinity Methodist Church, Omni Student Coalition, and a whole lot of other groups and people. There are quite a few Omni folks showing up to volunteer, and more are still needed! If you have some kitchen experience and some time give them a call.
MayDay Community Kitchen
For our special birthdays, these two projects and Omni Center are collaborating to collect money that will go especially to help MayDay this year. We are still in covid times, and the needs our county government refuses to acknowledge need to be picked up by we the people. If you can put some money into the kitty for the community, please click here and thank you sincerely.
