Coldplay

Oxfam volunteer talking to Coldplay fan
Originally uploaded by Brande Jackson

We got the opportunity to spend a few nights out with Coldplay earlier this summer, helping our our partners at Oxfam. Lokahi has really expanded the training component of our organization over this past year, and likewise we were excited to be invited by Oxfam to help train their on the ground touring team. During our nights out on the tour, we helped create
systems, volunteer trainings and other mechanisms to ensure that the field efforts over the course of the tour would maximize Oxfam's ability to engage as many fans as possible in their campaigns, encouraging them to sign up, take action, and get involved!

As always, these trainings also provided us with the bonus perk of a chance to be on the ground, working with volunteers and supporters, which is by far the most rewarding part of this work! Having ran the field efforts on the 2005 Coldplay tour for Oxfam, it was also pretty cool to see the impact our efforts made some three years on. We had a great time meeting and working with volunteers in Los Angeles and San Jose, and talking to fans about the amazing work that Oxfam is doing around the world.

You can check out our photos from the Coldplay shows here, and learn more about our training programs on our website.

Coldplay
lokahi outreach
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concert outreach

Back on the road with Warped!

Warped fan signing up!
Originally uploaded by Brande Jackson

Brian and I got to hit the road a few weeks back now, doing work on the California dates of the VANs Warped Tour. In addition to building support for our friends at ONE and Oxfam, we also registered voters and spread the word about our newest partner, Face AIDS, an amazing student led organization doing work to fight AIDS in Africa. Our Face AIDS volunteers in Mountain View, in fact, were quite adept at adopting the Warped Tour aesthetic, as you can see by the evidence below:



I've always loved working Warped - this was our 7th year out in some capacity - it seems to always remind me of why I got into doing this work to start with. Talking to people, especially so many young people, about these issues, and knowing that they might not have gotten informed or inspired otherwise is incredibly rewarding. I always go back to thinking about how music was what politicized me in a lot of ways, and how cool it is that someone could go to a show and literally have their life changed because they talk to one of our volunteers - as I always tell our volunteers, it might seem like what we are doing is simple, but it makes a big impact!

By the end of the week Brian and I had gotten several thousand people signed up to learn more and (hopefully!) get involved. A big thanks to all of you who came out to help, and do keep checking back here for updates and more ways you can get involved!

If you are not yet on our volunteer list, by the way, please be sure to get signed up for ways you can be involved.

Thanks!
-Brande

Upcoming volunteer opportunities

There are several upcoming volunteer opportunities we wanted to let you know about!

California Warped Tour Dates!

We’ll be at the following Warped Tour dates this week doing outreach for ONE, Face AIDS and a few other organizations, and still have space for volunteers to join us! Volunteers at Warped arrive at 10:30 or 11 and usually stay until about 3 or 4pm.

Warped Dates :

August 13th in Fresno
August 14th in San Diego
August 15th in Mountain View
August 16th in Sacramento
August 17th in Los Angeles


Music Builds!

The ONE Campaign is taking part in the upcoming Music Builds Tour
( http://musicbuildstour.com/ and http://www.one.org/blog/2008/08/01/music-builds-one-rocks/ for more information!) and needs volunteers to help reach out to fans and get more people involved in making poverty history. ONE will be out at all dates of the tour, and needs volunteers to arrive around 4pm at most shows.

The Music Builds dates are:

8/21 Detroit, MI
8/22 Indianapolis, IN
8/23 Chicago, IL
9/07 W Palm Beach, FL
9/11 Cleveland, OH
9/12 VA Beach, VA
9/13 Holmdel, NJ
9/14 Washington, DC
9/18 Birmingham, AL
9/19 Raleigh, NC
9/20 Atlanta, GA
9/21 Nashville, TN
9/25 Phoenix, AZ
9/26 Irvine, CA
9/27 San Diego, CA
9/28 Sacramento, CA
10/02 Dallas, TX
10/03 Houston, TX
10/04 San Antonio, TX
10/05 Oklahoma City, OK
10/10 Minneapolis, MN
10/11 Kansas City, KS
10/12 Denver, CO

Both Music Builds and Warped are unique and really rewarding opportunities to reach out to your community and help build the movement to fight extreme poverty.

To volunteer for Warped or Music Builds, send us an email ASAP, and we’ll put you in touch with the organizers of each tour. Be sure to let us know what date/tour you are interested in volunteer for.

HeadCount is still out on the road!

Our friends at HeadCount are still out on the road and need volunteers to join them in registering voters! We’ve had some AMAZING shows this past week with the Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson and OAR – to volunteer with HeadCount, visit their website and register as a volunteer:

www.headcount.org/volunteer.asp or email us for more info.

Thanks for your on-going support and hard work. Organizations like ONE and HeadCount couldn’t do what they do if not for the commitment and dedication of volunteers like you!

HeadCount hits the road...

The past few weeks have been busy over at HeadCount – as part of our partnership with HeadCount, Lokahi is helping the organization organize, structure and manage their touring outreach efforts. We are very excited (and a little tired...) about the fact that HC's touring teams have hit the road in full force, getting hundreds of people registered to vote and involved with HeadCount along the way!

Erin, Ashley, Stephanie and Ethan are the HC Dave Matthews Band touring team for the first leg of the tour. They got started two weeks ago in Pittsburgh and have been braving rainstorms, heat and long drives ever since. Bad weather hasn’t gotten them down though – they’ve gotten well over a thousand people registered to vote just a few weeks into the tour and are getting more and more people involved every night! They’ll be in Hartford this weekend, and working their way to Darien Lake and Boston next week.

HC's Pearl Jam tour kicked off this week in Florida. Amanda is their touring rep, hitting the road with the band in style as a part of their touring crew! Her and her volunteer teams got the tour off to a great start in Palm Beach and Tampa, getting hundreds of PJ fans registered to vote and informed about Headcount. A big ‘register to voter with Headcount’ shout out from Eddie Vedder was also a nice bonus and unexpected surprise for us!

Also hitting the road this week was the Jack Johnson team of Nicole and Johanna. They got their tour started in Indianapolis, braving rain with their hard core volunteer crew and getting over a hundred Jack fans registered to vote on their opening night.

Joining HC's touring teams on all of these dates are local Headcount volunteers – the Team Leaders, Regional Cordinators and local volunteers, all of whom are coming out in full force and really helping to get thousands of people registered this summer.

There are lots of dates ahead of us – check back as ‘on the road updates’ will start to roll in, check out HeadCount's photos here, and be sure to sign up to volunteer if you haven’t done so yet!

Lokahi partnering with Headcount this summer!

Lokahi is very excited to be launching a partnership with our friends at Headcount! We'll be teaming up with their crew to help get 100,000 new voters registered and educated over the course of this summer.

Lokahi will be helping Headcount with tour management and volunteer training & recruitment when they hit the road with Jack Johnson, the Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Pearl Jam and several other bands over the next few months.

Voter registration and education, with an emphasis on youth, has always been very important to us - we've spent many a hot summer on the Warped Tour registering thousands of young voter over the past several years! We are excited to be continuing this work, and are honored and eager to be partnering with Headcount, who has made a real commitment to voter outreach this year and is 'walking their talk', so to speak, by having countless team leaders and volunteers on the ground and hard at work.

We are looking forward to the months ahead - if you are already a volunteer on our email list, watch for volunteer info to come your way as we get closer to concert dates, and click here if you'd like to be added to the Headcount volunteer base.

heacount
voter registration
voter outreach
concert outreach
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lokahi outreach

(RED) U

Lokahi is proud to be working again with our partners at (RED). We are very excited to announce the launch of '(RED) U', a college internship and outreach program that we'll be involved with throughout next year. If you are going to be in school during the 08/09 academic year and are interested in applying, all of the info you need is below.



We look forward to reviewing applications and hearing about all the ways you can turn your campus (RED) next year!

More info on the (RED) U program can be found here.

PS: as always, we'll be also looking for volunteers to help us out on campuses and at other events throughout the year!

Make your campus (RED) next year

In our first year and half, (RED) has raised over 100 million dollars for the Global Fund. This amount could fund lifesaving antiretroviral treatment for more than 630,000 Africans for a year. The potential in what we are doing is huge. And the need is great.

Every day, 4,400 Africans die of AIDS. Of the 33.2 million people infected with AIDS globally, 68% are living in sub-Sahara Africa. More people die of AIDS in Africa every year than in all the other countries in the world combined.

What’s more tragic is that millions are dying unnecessarily. AIDS is a preventable, treatable disease. Two little pills that cost just 40 cents a day can keep people with HIV/AIDS alive.

In Africa, AIDS is a real emergency. We need a radically new approach to help eliminate it. We want you to help us do it.

(RED) is going to be on campuses across the country next year, and we want your help. How can you turn your campus (RED)? We’re looking for unique ideas – the five best concepts will be rewarded with a “(RED) Ambassador” position for the 08/09 school year, a chance to execute your proposal with our help, an opportunity to bring (RED) to your campus community in a meaningful way, and possibly even a trip to Africa.

(RED) U Student Ambassador Program

(RED) is excited to announce the launch of our (RED) Ambassador program for the 08/09 school year. The program is open to college students from any institution in the United States. Ambassadors will be responsible for turning their campus (RED): educating about the crisis of AIDS in Africa, promoting (RED) products and the role they play in fighting this epidemic, building an understanding of what (RED) is and how the (RED) model works, raising awareness about the Global Fund, and getting as many people as possible in your community to choose (RED) when shopping.

We’ll pick five students from campuses across the country later this spring to be our very first (RED) Ambassadors for the 08 – 09 school year. In this year-long commitment, (RED) Ambassadors will be serving in an internship role, getting a ton of hands-on experience with things like planning campaigns, organizing, marketing, event planning, and training volunteers. You’ll receive training and support from the (RED) team who will be your guide throughout the school year. Your training will kick off with a (RED) U weekend in June where you’ll meet some of the (RED) team, learn about our product partners, learn the ins and outs of the (RED) model, the Global Fund and the issues around the AIDS emergency in Africa, and develop a marketing and outreach plan for your campus. This is a great opportunity to expand your leadership skills and utilize your creativity and knowledge of your campus community in an effort to eliminate the AIDS emergency in Africa.




WANT TO MAKE YOUR CAMPUS (RED) AND BE ONE OF OUR FIRST (RED) AMBASSADORS?

Download the Campus Toolkit by clicking this link or going to the joinred.com homepage.

Then, check out the Application Instructions for information on how to apply to be a (RED) Ambassador. Be sure to also read the Guidelines, (RED) Talking Points and FAQ’s for all of the specifics that you’ll need for your application.

Turning Vail (RED)

Joining the (RED) community
Originally uploaded by Brande Jackson

We just got back from a very cold week in Vail! Brian and I were in town for the Vail Film Festival, talking to lots of people about (RED) and promoting the (RED) Vision Showcase. You can check out more photos here.

We’ll have some more updates coming pretty soon – summer plans are starting to firm up and we are excited about the months to come. Don’t forget, as always, that we’ll be needed lots of volunteers to join us, if you haven’t already, be sure to email
us if you’d like to be on our volunteer list.

Volunteering and internships

Hi everyone!

Winter is traditionally our slow time, so sorry for the lack of updates! We've mostly been focused on our after school program and making plans for the year ahead for the past few months.

Wanted to post a quick update though, as we've been getting a TON of emails lately regarding to volunteer opps and internships - thanks to everyone who has contacted us, we really appreciate your support and interest in what we do, and we have added you all to our volunteer/email list.

We are still figuring out our year ahead, so stay tuned for updates, we should have some soon. In the meantime, if you are interested in being added to our volunteer list, check out our Idealist.org listing that explains how it all works:

http://www.idealist.org/en/volunteeropportunity/144916-161

You can also email us to be added as well.

As far as internships go, we won't know for a few months yet if we'll have any positions available this summer, but we are very much so hoping we can offer a few spots, as they are a great way for young campaigners to learn about grassroots organizing. Again, keep checking back here - we'll post announcements both here and on our myspace page, and will be sending out emails as well.

Thanks again for the support - feel free to hit us up with any questions, ideas et all!