VFP Meeting Reminder and Idea from IVAW

Hello Vets,

 

Just a reminder about our first meeting in awhile Thursday night at 7 pm at St. Mary’s Episcopal (Lake Otis & Tudor). We will be downstairs. Please bring a friend so we can build our organization to step up our efforts to stop the war. It is clearly going to take a lot of work as the stalemate in Washington becomes more evident.

 

As for ideas—here is one I received from the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). Also check the link to the Eyes Wide Open project link at the bottom.

 

Dear IVAW Supporter,

 

I'm sure that, like me, you are angered and saddened by the mounting violence and chaos in Iraq. We watch in frustration as more U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians lose their lives in a misbegotten occupation that is well into its fifth year. We all want this war to end now. To achieve this goal, IVAW has developed a strategy that will directly challenge military support for the war, but we can't do it alone.

 

This summer IVAW members toured bases from Georgia to New York hosting BBQs for veterans and active duty service members to spread the word about the organization and its work to end the illegal occupation of Iraq and bring the troops home now. Our members were greeted with "Semper Fi" by active duty Marines at Camp Lejeune's mess hall in June, helped expand our largest on-base chapter at Fort Drum in New York, and celebrated July 4th with a fundraiser and concert in Philadelphia.

 

Now it is your turn. We are asking our supporters to host Bring Them Home House Parties to spread the word about IVAW's strategy to end the war now and to help us raise money to implement this strategy. IVAW plans to more than double our budget in the coming year as we expand our organizing on and near military bases and step into a larger leadership role within the anti-war movement. In order to do this we need to enlarge our base of supporters.

 

Please consider hosting a house party. You can read more about it and sign up at http://events.ivaw.org. We have done our best to make it easy by creating a simple guide, which includes materials for the event and ideas for different kinds of house parties. (You can find the guide here: http://events.ivaw.org/moreinfo ). But ultimately the success of this effort relies on the commitment of supporters like you.

 

If we have 50 house parties that each raise $500, that would pay for one full-time organizer. If we have 500 house parties it would allow us to hire 10 IVAW members as full-time organizers who would be trained to organize in every region of this country. Our membership could grow from over 500 to more than 5,000 and our capacity to build coalitions and strategic alliances would also grow, enabling us to be far more effective in our efforts to end the war now.

 

House parties are a great way to support our national strategy to end the war. Please host a Bring Them Home House Party so we will have the resources we need to get the job done.

 

Sincerely,

Kelly Dougherty

Former Sergeant, Army National Guard

Executive Director

Iraq Veterans Against the War

www.IVAW.org

 

Our postal address is

PO Box 8296

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19101

United States

 

 

Jon Lockert

Jon4Paz@AcsAlaska.net

• Peace Events: http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=qcq21ir6k6f56vll38aorgltic%40group.calendar.google.com
• Veterans for Peace: http://akpeacevets.blogspot.com
• Peace Coalition: http://alaskans4peace.blogspot.com
• Eyes Wide Open - Alaska http://ewoak.blogspot.com/