November CARE Team Volunteer Opportunities

Want to be a Mentor ? Murals is the MGR Foundation’s art & drama program that works with primary and secondary Chicago Public School students to address issues of violence in our communities. We’re looking for people who have a genuine interest in working with youth and believe in non-violence as a tool for conflict resolution. There’s no need to be good at art or drama, though it's a plus. Because Murals runs at multiple sites and at different times, please feel free to contact Conal [KAH-null], Murals Program Director at conal@mgrf.org or (773) 313-0075 for commitment details and info.

CareTeam News: We’re creating more project-based events – that is, we’ll work with a particular organization on a particular project for a number of sessions. You can come to whichever sessions you like; if you don’t come to the first one, you can still come to any of the remaining. And of course, keep your ideas coming. We’re always looking for new partner organizations and thinking about projects to do – and you usually have the best ideas.

Traveling Food Circus (a.k.a. CareTeam Eats)
Mondays, November 5th 12th 19th 26th
We’re at a different site! For the month of November, we’ll be meeting at Seward Park , which is smack dab between some of Chicago ’s poorest and wealthiest neighborhoods. Join us in sorting, bagging and distributing food to people in the neighborhood who need it. Feel free to talk with people and ask them what else they need; this could be the beginning of something else . . . .
Seward Park
375 W Elm St
1-3pm
I'd like to lead this event on one of these dates.

Puppetry (Session 1 of 4)
Tuesday, November 6th
Please do not send us your used socks, as they will be rejected. Working with elementary school youth, we’re making puppets and then developing plays with intricate plots. During session 4, we’ll be performing our puppet plays for each other.
Logan Square Boys & Girls Club
3228 W Palmer
5-7pm
I'll volunteer for this event.
I'd like to lead this event.

Focus, People.
Saturday, November 10th
What kinds of volunteer events would you like to see in the future? What does it mean to lead an event? How do we select sites? What would you like to try? Come to CareTeam’s first monthly meeting to give input, ask questions, and design future events.
CareTeam Central
5097 N Elston
10-11:30am (w/ light breakfast)
I’d like to come.

And Now, the News (Session 1 of 3)
Sunday, November 11th
We provide you with a Sunday paper and you get to check it out with a senior at the Nathalie Salmon House. As Sundays are the ultimate newspaper-reading days, this is a perfect opportunity for you to update your new senior friend on whatever s/he’s interested in: travel, local news, the funnies, etc. And if you don’t feel like reading, come to the kitchen and make brunch (whatever that is).
Nathalie Salmon House
7320 N Sheridan , 5th floor
10:30-1pm (come for any period of time)
I'll volunteer for this event.
I'd like to lead this event.

Team Trivia! (Theme: Biology)
Wednesday, November 14th
Team players welcome. We’re continuing our usually-noisy team trivia with the new theme of biology. Why? Because we’ve run out of sports questions. Hey - if you have a theme suggestion, we’re all ears. Prizes are McDonald’s gift certificates, which are highly treasured.
REST Men’s Shelter
941 W Lawrence
8-9:30pm
I'll volunteer for this event.
I'd like to lead this event.

(g)love 8
Saturday, November 17th
The cold season is arriving, and for some of us it’s already too cold. Join us as we begin another (g)love season by gathering to pack bags of cold weather gear and food. Then take to the streets and pass them out to people who need them (and who’ll likely thank you for them).
Epworth United Methodist Church
5253 N Kenmore
9-12pm
I'll volunteer for this.
I'd like to lead this event.

Dignity Diner Artwork
Tuesday, November 20th
At 6 O’Clock We Eat was an incredible exhibit, and we’d like to thank all of you who came out, as well as Chicago Public Radio, TimeOut Chicago and Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism for spreading the word. For those of you didn’t get a chance to participate, it’s not too late: We’re continuing our artwork and now using different mediums.
Holy Covenant United Methodist Church
925 W Diversey
6:30-8:30pm
I'll volunteer for this.
I'd like to lead this event.



*If you need driving directions to any of these events, please try http://www.mapquest.com/. For public transportation, try http://www.yourcta.com/. If you need a ride, please let us know by selecting “Need Transportation” when you sign up.

National Make A Difference Day ...

... is almost here!

What is Make A Difference Day?

Make A Difference Day is the most encompassing national day of helping others, a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors. Everyone can participate. Make A Difference Day is an annual event that takes place on the fourth Saturday of every October. The next event is Saturday, October 27, 2007.

This year, I won't be with 'the crew' (boo-hoo!) but there's always a cause, community one can volunteer our time with. A look around your community might inspire with ideas of what needs to be done. Here's your opportunity to start being part of the solution.

Am I Beautiful?

Unfortunately I believe this question is culturally defined and practiced. Growing up, I was not exposed to a standard of beauty that many of my friends were. My mami and other such figures didn't wear makeup, dress provacatively and other such demeaning acts. These women were of high distinction and respect. These were the women to emulate. What could makeup add to that? I am ever so thankful for having them in my life and shaping my world for the better. Now ...

Finding myself teetering between two distinctive cultures, I find myself looking into my bathroom mirror, surveying all of my flaws. (Thankfully it is not a full-length mirror. Honestly though, I would probably have too much time on my hands if I took those flaws seriously.) Of course, I have had friends who have told me that I would look so much more prettier if only I would wear makeup and arrange for a girls' night out. After much taunting, I would acquiesce and await the results of their work minutes later. Sometimes the results have been downright horrifying but they all made me feel 'different'. That person staring back at me was not 'me'. What was so wrong with 'me' that had to change? Better still, why was I so unacceptable to you? Thankfully girls' night out turned into seemingly endless nights of talking and sharing with a new group of friends.

Please do not get me wrong, I do enjoy dressing up and whatnot but I do not view it as something that should be demanded of me. It is just so sad to watch other women obsess about this and/or that and how it all can be solved if only we do this and/or that. Why?

What prompted the topic of this blog entry is a Dove movie "Onslaught" (which is down below). I do not want to ruin for you, so I will not go into details. My hope is that you watch it. If you see pieces of yourself in it, ask yourself why.

Jeff Buckley

In with the New ...

... Out the Old! Some changes are good, some bad. (OH, BOY!!!)

I thought I would change the format of this blog to have some semblance of 'newness' in my life. Besides, the old blog was hard to view for some -- sorry! I do hope to keep the newbie updated more often than I have in the past ... well, I wouldn't hold my breath on it!

ENJOY! (or not!)

Interesting Read ...

Below is a reply -- the actual question is long and tedious to read -- to a "Dear Cary" article featured on salon.com. While we all may not struggle with our sexual identity, maybe comfort can be found within Cary's reply.

Dear Apparently Definitely Bisexual,

I fear that I do not have a very good answer for you, but I will do my best. Deeply idealistic people might, with the best of intentions, suggest you create an arrangement to fulfill these desires and fantasies. And maybe you can, within your current situation. Whatever you decide to do, it is certainly not a question of one pat answer.

That, of course, would be an oversimplification, but ... so ... oh, damn, I smell burning rubber! No, seriously, I had this little electric heater on and it was cooking my tennis shoes!
Am I serious enough to help you come to grips with your bisexuality, if I can barely keep my tennis shoes from catching fire? This troubles me -- though it is thematically appropriate: We face the things that are before us whatever they are! Even if they are burning tennis shoes!
Anyway, I would certainly bore both of us silly if I simply said, "Go see a therapist." What is a therapist going to do? Help you see more clearly what you already know -- that you are attracted to women but you're married already?

At the same time, a therapist who is good at problem solving and who has some personal experience in this area may be able to help you. And visualizing a possible future may also be useful. Looking toward the future, perhaps you will keep your marriage together but, over time, with the right woman, settle into a discreet, middle-class, longtime attachment -- with benefits. Perhaps a person will come along who gets where you're coming from and won't be too demanding and will let you experience the things you so fervently desire to experience, and maybe you will be able to manage this day-to-day, and maybe your husband will sort of know and sort of accept it, and maybe he will even openly and concretely and fully accept it, and maybe in the haze of our humanity, where it merges into the mystery of identity and biology and fate, maybe in that hazy gray area where so much of our identity seems to fall, you can find some provisional peace and joy. Perhaps without too much lying and hiding but also without too much open conflict, without too much cliché but also without too much dishonesty with self and others, without too much gnashing of teeth and sleepless nights, without too much interfering in the lives of others and making unfulfillable promises to people who want you to change your life completely, without too much guilt and too much shame and too much recrimination for past mistakes, without too many urgent late-night inquiries directed at gods and goddesses unknown, you can accommodate this aspect of yourself, which is, like the rest of you, sacred, if we take ourselves to be sacred at all, without taking ourselves too seriously. And perhaps along the way, it will become clear that your marriage to this man cannot last. But let's take it one step at a time.

I say this because, you know, this is the complex territory of compromise to which your desires are leading you.

Here is the ethical and moral problem in a nutshell, as I, an amateur, see it. We are not completely responsible for the longings that arise in us, nor are most of us able to know them completely. For those of us who have the time to do a great deal of reading, talking and introspection, such as the upper classes who are not required to work for a living, and for those of us who can pay for the expensive attentions of highly trained and compassionate professionals, the intricate patterns of desire that shape our sexuality might over time become sufficiently clear that we could take responsibility for them. And we might then also have the resources to deal with the consequences of accepting them and trying to live by them. But how can most of us, who barely have time to complete the chores that keep our family fed before we fall exhausted into bed, how can we take responsibility and act ethically and morally and meet our own desires when we cannot even see clearly where those desires come from or where they might lead? Is it right, then, for those of us who are not rich enough to afford ample time for deep introspection and expensive analysis, to simply shut down any feelings that seem to threaten our status quo? That doesn't seem right. And yet is it right to disrupt other people's lives by disclosing previously unknown or repressed or unacknowledged drives that now threaten to cause fundamental changes in our living arrangements? That doesn't sound right either.

So this is a tough question and it seems to call for difficult compromise. Surely when we set out in life we do not know everything about who we are; we meet stark surprises along the way: Guess what, I'm bisexual! Or: Guess what! It turns out I'm actually a woman in a man's body!

There is some support available if you look for it, and I do suggest that you reach out to others who have been through what you are going through.

I do not know too much, frankly, about the support available for married bisexual women, except that it is out there if you look for it. I do know this, though: True self-knowledge comes slowly. The facts are often buried. It can take months or years to undo our habit of pretending that we are not really what we increasingly appear to be, that we do not really want what it is increasingly clear that we do want, however surprising or disruptive our desire might be. ("Guess what, Dear! It is now clear as day to me: All my life I have really wanted to be ... an entomologist!") Time passes slowly, as we undo layer after layer of habitual "saying something other than what it is," as we begin to learn new habits of facing the way things are. We are complex creatures!

I will say, with a note of optimism, that you can show great courage and dignity in squarely facing yourself as you are, in accepting the fact that while you might not get everything you want, you do not have to kid yourself about what it is that you want.

That, it would seem, is a step you have taken: This is who I am. This is what I want.
Whether, and how, you attempt to get it, well, that is the question that now lies before you. I hope you can find ongoing help, support and comfort as you wrestle with that one.

Dignity Diner

October 12th-14th

View the artwork and watch video clips of Dignity Diner patrons, and listen to interviews with Lower Wacker Drive residents.

Opening Friday, October 12th 6-9pm
Oral History Listening Sessions Saturday & Sunday, October 13th & 14th 1pm
Closing Sunday, October 14th 3pm

Green Lantern Gallery
1511 N Milwaukee Ave, 2nd floor

Peace Corps at Starkville

Come hear regional recruiter and returned Peace Corps volunteer Debbie Curley share her experiences from Cameroon and tell you more about how you can sign up for an amazing adventure helping others at the same time!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8

5:00-6:00pm
GlobeTalk
Montgomery Hall Room 15
Mississippi State University

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9

1:00-4:00pm
MSU Career Fair
Humphrey Coliseum

For more information contact Debbie Curley at
dcurley@peacecorps.gov or 404.562.3477.