Photo by Russ Taylor and Steve Duvoisin

Tickets are on sale now for Portland’s Taste of the Nation, the city’s premier food and wine tasting event for 20 years!  This FUN event will be April 30, 2007 at the Oregon Convention Center, and 100% of proceeds go to fight hunger. This year’s taste will feature more than 70 Oregon chefs and restaurants, over 40 wineries and microbreweries, local music and a great silent auction.

Ticket prices are $75 in advance and $100 for VIP tickets; 75% of ticket prices are tax deductible. The event runs 6:30-9:30pm and VIP Admission is at 5:30pm, and is a 21-and-over-only event. To buy tickets, go to www.portlandtaste.org, call (503) 222-4644, (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Sisters is honored to once again be a Taste beneficiary.  Thank-you to Share Our Strength, Portland Taste of the Nation, all the generous sponsors, participants, and attendees!  Would you like to help Sisters by volunteering with the wonderful, amazing volunteer-driven and FUN Taste of the Nation crew? Help is needed for a variety of tasks, both on the day of the event and before.  (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

You are invited, Thursday, May 3rd 7:30 am to 9:00 am!  Includes breakfast, presentation and exciting table discussions!

Imagine a region where:
•All residents have access to opportunities such as good jobs, real transportation choices, safe and stable housing, a good education, a range of parks and natural areas, vibrant public spaces, and healthful, regionally produced foods.
•The benefits and burdens of growth and change are equitably shared across our communities.
•All residents and communities are involved as full and equal partners in public decision-making.

This breakfast is co-hosted by Coalition for a Livable Future (CLF), whose purpose is to promote healthy, equitable and sustainable communities and of which Sisters Of The Road is a member.

Come learn more about CLF’s Regional Equity Atlas Project. Through this mapping project, CLF is bringing to light the inequities in our region and how many issues, even environmental, effect people who are poor much more than those who have more resources. Through the Regional Equity Atlas Project results, CLF will work with 100’s of organizations and individuals in the community to find ways to ensure that everyone in our region can enjoy the high quality of life that makes the Portland area special.

Please RSVP to Monica (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or by calling 503-222-5694 ext. 19 no later than Friday, May 27th so we can have plenty of food and room (we are a wee small Cafe!).

This event is free with the goal of building cross-class community and information, skills and the community will to ensure that everyone has what they need to survive and thrive.  Please join us!

You are invited to a very special party, the launch of Sisters’ book, Voices from the Street: Truths about Homelessness from Sisters Of The Road!


Thursday, May 24, 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm we welcome you to the mezzanine of the (pictured above) fantastically newly-renovated Portland Armory at 128 NW Eleventh Ave., cross street Davis.  Chat with publishers Gray Sunshine, author Jessica P. Morrell, and foreword author and Sisters’ cofounder Genny Nelson, and get your copy of the long-awaited book based on 515 interviews with people who have experienced homelessness.

Then, at 7:30 walk up the street to Powell’s Books at 1005 W. Burnside for a book signing and presentation.  To buy an advance copy of the book securely online,click here.
  Prices: Hardcover, $44.95; Trade Softcover, $24.95

To learn more the data the book was based on and to learn how to request pieces of it for your own project, click here.

What people are saying about this groundbreaking book!

“Read this beautiful chronicle of Sisters Of The Road customers -  the crossroads of transient Portland street life for three decades.”  -Gus Van Sant

“Both depressing and inspirational—all my colleagues in Congress and other public policy makers should read it!”  -Peter DeFazio U.S. Representative, 4th District Oregon

“VOICES FROM THE STREET is an extraordinary and very moving book. There is not one word of hokum in it.  It will break your heart, yet it offers solid hope. Just look at the “maps” drawn by homeless people of their family, their human relationships—you’ll have, in ten minutes, a great, unforgettable picture of human pride, fear, loneliness, and longing.”    -Ursula K. Le Guin

Here’s what some of our narrators have to say. A man, age not given, on ending homelessness:

“‘Love thy brother.’ Until society, from top to bottom, decides that people are more important then televisions, they are more important than super highways, they are more important than doggies or doggy parks or fantastic-looking Pioneer Squares. When people are more important than that, then people will say, ‘I love my brother. I cannot allow my brother to live under a bridge when I have a garage, when I have an extra room, when I have 5 million dollars in the bank…’ That is never going to happen, I am sorry to say. It is sad, but it can be improved.”

A man, 74, on opportunity:

“People don’t want to be homeless.  Give them the benefit of the doubt. Five them at least a chance to prove they don’t want to be homeless. They don’t want to be cold and alone. They want a chance to have something, but people don’t give them that chance. It’s just really sad when people aren’t given a chance to show what they can do. Really is sad.”


Thank-you everyone who has helped make this exciting book a reality!

Sisters Of The Road will be this year’s local recipient of the Portland CROP Walk, a benefit held by the Church World Service on May 20th, 2007.  Registration begins at 1:30; the walk begins at 2:00 from the First Christian Church 1315 SW Broadway in downtown Portland.  The walk will be a 3 mile loop through downtown and NW Portland.  Thank-you CROP Walk!  To learn more about participating, (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Individuals may solicit friends, coworkers, etc. to sponsor them as they walk in solidarity with those who must walk to obtain food and/potable water.  Last year CROP Walk raised over $4000 with approximately 100 walkers!  This year’s goal is to raise $5000 with 150 walkers.  25% of funds raised will remain in the local community to address hunger, this year with Sisters; other funds will be used to fight hunger overseas.

 

CROP (Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty) is a fund raiser for the work of the Church World Service, the relief and development arm of the National Council of Churches, an protestant ecumenical organization.  CROP Walks are held throughout the year in communities across the U. S.

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Save The Date-October 13, Hoedown and Auction 2007

Pardners, join us Saturday, October 13 4:30- 9:30 pm at the Portland Art Museum’s Kridel Ballroom for our biggest fundraiser of the year!  Tickets are $85 for individuals and tables of 10 are $850 with a limited number of patron tables available.  To buy tickets or a table, (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call (503) 222-5694 ext. 19.  To find out more about sponsorship, click here.

The success of the auction depends on the generosity of our community!  If you have items or services you can donate to the auction, please (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call her at (503) 222-5694 ext. 14.  Click here to get a PDF version of the item donation form.  We’d love to see you at the auction!

Last year’s Hoedown and Auction was more fun than a greased piglet race and netted $107,000 for Sisters’ good work!  Click here to take a gander at some wonderful pho-tee-graphs of that thar event.  We’ll be as happy as a duck on junebug to see you next year at the Hoedown!