Water = Hope launches in Virginia Beach!

We kicked off our campaign for Water = Hope with Brad Paisley last night in Virginia Beach!


Our first ever Water = Hope volunteer crew

We were joined by six awesome volunteers: Cheyenne, Katelyn, Ciara, Chandler and Carrie are all high school students in the Virginia Beach area, and Robyn, (Chandler and Carrie’s mom!), was also there working all evening. It was a first time volunteer experience for most of our team, and in turn, it was the first time Water = Hope has had volunteers help us at a show, and they did great - signing up hundreds of people, getting a lot of support for the Simon Water for the World Act.


Fans join Water = Hope!

Hope Through Healing Hands Chairman Senator Frist also joined us, helping to talk to fans and getting them excited about the potential in bringing cleaning water to the one billion that lack it.


Senator Frist and Paisley fans

Being in Virginia Beach, we also talked with lots of fans that were current or retired members of the military, many of whom had seen the need for clean water around the world first hand and were eager to lend their support.

We also got a lot of love from the Paisley crew - Brad himself came by and picked up a shirt from our booth, so keep an eye out for it to appear on stage sometime soon. The tour continues on to Washington DC tonight, and we are looking forward to getting more and more people involved!

If you’d like to join us as a volunteer, be sure to get signed up for a show coming to your town soon!

Water = Hope campaign - volunteer!

Lokahi is excited to be partnering with Hope Through Healing Hands and their recently launched Water = Hope campaign; check out the website we just created to learn more.

We are also looking for volunteers to make this campaign a huge success:



A small drop can create a huge ripple.

Join Water = Hope as a volunteer on the Brad Paisley tour this summer and bring clean water to the millions that need it!

Hope Through Healing Hands is launching a nationwide effort around our Water = Hope campaign this spring and summer. Building on the idea that one individual can create a ripple, we are creating and supporting opportunities for volunteers to mobilize across the country to engage others in the clean water movement, advocate for smart clean water legislation, and promote investment in clean water projects globally.

Being a clean water campaigner can take on lots of different looks: you might lead efforts on your campus, you might be organizing meetings in your neighborhood, you might be joining us at national events – it’s really up to you! Water = Hope will be providing you with the training, information, materials and support that you need to make your efforts a huge success, building a grassroots movement of people committed to bringing clean water to those 890 million who lack it.

We are working with volunteers that will lead efforts in their communities and campuses around clean water, and who will be joining us at concerts and other events this summer, leading efforts to invest, connect and advocate.

In particular, we will be at all US Brad Paisley tour dates from May through September, and need volunteers to join us at the concerts!


To join us as a volunteer and learn more, please visit: http://waterequalshope.com/volunteer/

Campus Ambassadors hard at work...

LACC student Lawrence has been hard at work on campus lately - check him out in action:





He's been building lots of support, working with other campus groups to hold events like movie screenings, and recruiting new ACLU members - very cool stuff!

Remembering Volunteer Sherri Bui

I really love the fact that my work with Lokahi allows me to interact with countless devoted volunteers for all sorts of causes. In particular, I got to work with some really cool people when I was involved with the ONE Campaign, which was how I met Sherri Bui.

I can’t remember exactly when she first joined us, I think it was the Pearl Jam tour in the summer of 2006, but she was always game for joining in regardless of where we were set up or what we were doing (the photo above is from a hot, dirty day at the Warped Tour one year!), and was an incredibly fun, joyous person to be around. I still have several of the birthday and ‘congrats’ cards she sent me over the years, one of which, a (RED) card in fact, I see every day as it sits on the ledge right by my desk. In an age of Facebook wall posts and text messages (both which Sherri also utilized to say hello and send best wishes!) there is something incredibly thoughtful about getting a card in the mail; she was that kind of person.

I was saddened and shocked to hear about her passing yesterday - she was only 40, and unknown to me, and I suspect many others, had been in treatment for cancer for several years. Sherri was a really amazing, generous, kind, caring person - a reminder that in addition to the social wrongs we are striving to correct, being blessed with the opportunity to know and work with people like her is a big part of the reason that many of us do the work that we do. I feel lucky to have known her and to have spent time with her participating in something we were both passionate about.


Sherri on the ONE blog last year


Sherri and the ONE volunteer crew at U2 in Honolulu, Dec 2006



Sherri and Brian at Warped August 2008

Howard Zinn

I've long loved this quote:

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
-Howard Zinn, 1922 - 2010

http://www.howardzinn.org/

Campus intern training

Lokahi’s campus project with the ACLU-SC got off to a big start last week with our orientation and training. Students from five campuses gathered at the ACLU’s downtown offices to meet each other, learn about the history of the organization and get a crash course on outreach and campus organizing techniques.



Our students this year come from varied campuses and backgrounds. Dan is our USC Ambassador, Alice will be working UCLA, Erica hails from CSULB, Kyle is from LA City College, and Alex is doing a community program covering the west side.

The students got a chance to hear from key ACLU staff, including deputy director Heather Carrigan, and the ACLU-SC Executive Director of the past thirty years, Ramona Ripston. They also spent a lot of time working with us on volunteer training, outreach techniques, organizing concepts, and administrative concerns. It was a lot of information packed into a one day training, but we are confident they will do great, and they will continue to attend monthly training’s throughout the school year in 2010 to fine tune their skills.



Our Ambassadors hit the ground running - several had recruited new ACLU members within days of attending the orientation, and all are balancing their finals and family holiday related commitments with getting their unique campus programs up and running.

Lokahi’s campus programs such as this are unique in the way that they are structured to maximize the time students give; interns receive a lot of support, direct management and ongoing training, but they are given a lot of freedom to create programs that are uniquely tailored to their campus environment. In the end, this allows them to have a meaningful ‘internship’ with something tangible to show for their efforts, while also providing a tremendous service and benefit to the organization they are working with. For our ACLU program, our Campus Ambassadors will be increasing ACLU membership, educating their campus about the organization and its current campaigns and helping to increase the awareness of the organization itself. In turn, student will be learning a lot about community organizing and outreach, cause marketing, fundraising and leadership and will end the program with an impressive resume of accomplishments.



We are very eager to see our students get to work in the new year - check back for regular updates, and we’ll also post links to the individual student blogs soon as well.