Re-organizing

For some reason, I have a keen spacial perception that is perfect for a number of things: packing cars full of luggage, organizing rooms of furniture, and as I discovered today, figuring out how to organize and find space for all of the materials for writing workshops in the tiniest closet space! James, another volunteer, and I spent most of our time sorting through materials and finding places for them in the closet or the one cabinet in the workshop room. I think it was James who said, he finds it easier to clean and re-organize someone elses space than it is for him to reorganize his own space. There is something true about that, because this process that could feel like a terrible chore was actually a perfect break from the crazy intellectual world of my last week of college classes. Not to mention, the closet looked amazing after we were done with it today.

Monthly Donations

Everyday I take the LC Shuttle to my internship and usually I walk to the library downtown to do some work (The shuttle arrives just after 10am and my internship begins at 11am). But its always a struggle to find the best path to take while walking downtown in order to avoid getting pulled aside and guilt-tripped into spending money on just about any kind of nonprofit organization. I've had people chase me from one corner to the next saying -- can't you spare 75 cents for starving children? Who can walk away from this without feeling like a terrible person? I think I walk away feeling angry, I am perfectly happy to hear about different organizations on the street, sign petitions, get informed, but I have absolutely no income right now, not to mention a mound of student loans that are not subsidized by the government and are gathering interest faster than I can speak.

It is sort of ironic that when I get to the WRAP office, we are putting together a mailing asking for monthly donations. I talked to Beth about the street people downtown, and she said that she tells them that she donates to three organizations (because she does donate to three organizations). She choose the ones that she felt best supporting. But the people at WRAP aren't about guilt tripping people. Their letter was very sweet, and focused on how thankful they were for the help and involvement of the people who have participated in WRAP in the past. It was personalized with the signatures of all 4 women in the office. And thanks to Steve and I, the envelopes also had hand-written names and addresses on them.

Everyone's got to survive during these tough economic times, but I appreciate the approach that is more about uplifting people and welcoming ways for people to support the communities they want, then getting guilt tripped on the street and having strangers question my character based on how much money I am willing to donate. (forgive the rant...)

Out Sick

This week is the week to review submissions for the anthology and make decisions in a committee. I really wanted to be a part of this process, but I got really sick on Sunday and have been pretty much in bed every chance I can get. I'm glad I stayed home on Tuesday to recover, and now that it is the end of the week I am feeling much better. But I'm sad I missed out on the selection process this week.

Finding the name of the event

Write Around Portland has a fancy, fun creative writing party that generates a lot of funding for the group. In previous years they have called the event "Wordigo" but it turns out this word is trademarked by someone else. When I was at work today I was asked to keep a piece of paper by my desk to write down any clever names for the event that I could think of. I worked at Sara's desk in the office today because Sara was out sick, and I am still working on updating information on all of the Partners that WRAP has ever worked with. I spent a lot of today searching the web for addresses and phone numbers, and it was sad to find out that some organizations that used to cater to the Portland Community no longer exist now. One example is the restitution center. I came across this powerful website which has photographs of places that now no longer serve the community because of budget cuts in government funding.

In between internet searches, Beth, Dawn, and Robyn (all directors at WRAP) offered all kinds of ideas for what to name the event. My sheet of paper next to the desk was full of silly ideas. I think my best invention of the day was "poescape," mixing the word poetry (or poesy) with escape.