Volunteers needed . . . along with laundry facilities, cars, tools, etc. to help recycle Occupy. Wow, this is an incredibly sad email to read – all these resources that people had will be donated to others in need, while the people that could use them will be denied access to these resources by the City of Madison.
Occupy Madison held a General Assembly meeting at the Occupy site last night, and the vote was overwhelmingly (22-3) to comply with the city’s April 30th eviction order and to do everything we can to clean up the site, taking down all the structures and returning the site to the way we found it. At the meeting, several residents spoke about the unfair stereotypes that get applied to homeless people, as being “lazy and irresponsible”, and said that they felt an obligation to prove otherwise in the way that we respond to the eviction order.
As much as possible, we want to make sure that useable items at the camp that the residents can’t carry with them get donated or used instead of dumpstered. That means the large hoop house would go to a local CSA or community garden, useable building materials would get donated to Habitat Restore, canned goods would go to a food bank, bedding and clothing gets cleaned and donated.
We have 18 days until the 30th, and a lot of work to do — can we count on your help?
Have construction experience, or power tools to lend? De-construction work will take place this weekend (the 21st and 22nd) and our final weekend (the 29th and 30th.) To help with deconstruction, please come to the site on these days anytime between 10am and dark. If you have power tools to lend, we need them — especially cordless or corded drills to remove the thousands of screws holding our two main buildings together.
Got a car? Excess materials (whatever the residents do not or cannot take with them) will be sorted and stacked neatly at the site to take to St. Vinny’s, Goodwill, etc. The main need for people with cars to help with this will be the weekend of the 28th and 29th, but it would help us a lot if you can let us know ahead of time that we can count on you for car duty this weekend.
Have a washing machine? Lots of excess clothes and bedding will need to be sorted through, some discarded, some washed and folded for donation. This won’t happen until the last weekend (28th and 29th) and lots will still need to be done on the 30th itself (which is a Monday). Please let me know ahead of time if you can do a load or two of laundry on one of these days, and if you can come to the site to pick it up.Want to help with general cleanup? The big day for general cleanup work, which includes taking down and folding tents, sweeping the lot, etc. will be Monday the 30th. Occupy will not force any site resident out of their tent before the April 30th eviction date, but this also means more work for all of us when the 30th comes. If you can help with general cleanup on the 30th, please come to the Occupy site, 800 East Washington, any time on Monday the 30th.
Contact Steve: outreach@wnpj.org
