CPJC Admin Blog

May 2017 Update

The April CPJC highlight was Pancakes for Peace, which drew about 500 children and adults for a great, all-you-can breakfast plus the annual Easter Egg and Golfball Treasure Hunt, silent auction, massage, and excellent community conversation and socializing. Thanks once again to the planning team, myriad volunteers, and contributors to the silent auction.

During the month we added Love Chapmantown, Mobilize, and Chico Velo to our roster of community allies, and the Center has collaborated with Chico Velo, Showing Up for Racial Justice, Love Chapmantown, and Mobilize for event planning and action.

The pilot workshop for Whose Lives Matter was conducted in early April and will be a major program of the center in coming months. The Human Relations network held an especially well attended and candid public town hall meeting with the District Attorney and Chico Police Chief to discuss the Desmond Phillips Shooting—a meeting that was also covered by local media. The newly formed Citizen’s Climate Lobby group is now meeting at CPJC, working to bring about climate change action through an innovative approach to carbon taxes. The Executive Director also participated in a Gold Radio broadcast—a public tv/radio program widely broadcast in the northern Sierra.

The new Program Coordinator for Career Builders, Moses Salgado, has begun the outreach campaign, including high schools and businesses, preparing for major school visits in the beginning of the school year. Volunteer Blake Hollingsworth is analyzing data to identify schools and classes which have the most military recruits after high school; this will help focus the program.

Coming up in May will be the monthly gathering for Peace Gardening 101 (May 6), Everybody’s Revolution (May 10), and a Doin’ It Justice Choir concert benefitting CPJC and Women’s Health Specialists on May 20 and 21. (See separate announcements of these events.)

CPJC is growing a vibrant hub for activists and activism. But our budget is small and we need financial support from the peace and justice community. Please consider a one-time or increased sustaining contribution to further our work. Our website is open 24/7/365 and welcomes your support at http://chicopeace.org/membership.

CPJC Admin Actions, News from Our Allies

Alternatives to Violence Project

The Alternatives to Violence Project California, through a California state grant, is expanding and establishing a community presence of workshops and volunteer facilitators within Butte County to support local community and High Desert Prison workshops. AVP’s experiential workshops focus on community building, communication skills, and conflict resolution for community members and inmates in an effort to reduce violence, incarceration and recidivism.

Learn More

CPJC Admin Blog

CPJC Endorses Sanctuary City Proposal

At its March meeting, the CPJC Board of Directors endorsed the proposal by Lin Jensen to the City Council seeking to establish Chico as a sanctuary city. View the full text here. As reported by CPJC members and the local press, some thirty-five people appeared at the City Council meeting on February 21 to support the resolution.

As Lin writes, “The four conservative council members, Sean Morgan, Reanette Fillmer, Mark Sorensen, and Andrew Coolidge, all voted down even so much as a request to give the Resolution a hearing, and did so in the blink of an eye. I was in disbelief and disheartened that they could be so indifferent to the 30 or more Latino immigrants who waited hours to make a plea to the council for help and support. I’m no veteran of politics, but apparently this sort of hardened disregard of others is not uncommon.”

Lin plans to continue the campaign, and CPJC and its members applaud his efforts.

CPJC Admin Actions, Campaigns

Occupy Beale Air Force Base

CPJC activists have led anti-militarization demonstrations at the site of Beale Air Force Base for many years, including protests against the Iraq war and military escalation in southwest Asia and around the world. Currently, monthly demonstrations focus upon the U.S. military use of drones to attack overseas and US-born peoples.

Photo: nodronescalifornia.blogspot.com

For more information and upcoming direct actions:

OccupyBealeAirForceBase
Chris Nelson (530-345-7590)
Cathy Webster (530-591-3225)

Drones allow aggressors to destroy targets and kill suspects extrajudicially, including children and innocent people, from a computer thousands of miles away. They can spy intimately on anyone, including citizens in the US, and can commit assassinations in defiance of international and U.S. law. 50 nations now have drones — an expanding insane proliferation.

Occupy Beale AFB demands an end to Drone Warfare, Surveillance, Proliferation by the U.S. Government and the CIA. Specifically:

  1. An immediate ban on the use of all drones for extrajudicial killing.
  2. A halt to all drone surveillance that assaults basic freedoms and inalienable rights and terrorizes domestic life in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia.
  3. A prohibition on the sale, and distribution of drones and drone technology to foreign countries in order to prevent the proliferation of this menacing threat to world peace, freedom and security.
  4. An end to lawless US drone warfare that violates many international laws and treaties.
CPJC Admin Actions, Programs

Career Builders: Counter-Recruitment

What if they staged a war and nobody came? Sound far fetched? Not to those who know a veteran with a catastrophic injury or post-traumatic stress disorder, or who had a friend or loved one deploy and not return. Not for those who know a service person for whom the military did not live up to promises made by a recruiter.

But what job opportunities now exist in the U.S. for young people who lack privilege and connections to find gainful employment or need money for higher education? Career Builders works to present alternative work opportunities to local youth.

Career Builders: Counter Recruitment (CBCR) aims to counter the often overwhelming military promotional campaign that local students face on their high school campuses. CBCR provides accurate and under-reported information about the realities of military service and highlights alternatives to military involvement, including scholarship opportunities. CBCR communicates directly with local high school students by tabling near high school campuses over lunch periods and engages students through music, food, flyers, graphic exhibit panels and personal contact.

CBCR is seeking volunteers and interns of all ages, particularly of high school and college age, as well as volunteers with recent military experience, to help enrich the conversation with teenagers currently subject to pressure from recruiters to join the military. Your help with Facebook and blog postings, maintaining and transporting large information panels, publicity, set-up and breakdown of exhibits, and assistance with providing food and drink for students, would be welcomed.

The Career Builders: Counter Recruitment team has planning and information meetings at the Center every month, and volunteers table at least monthly near local high school campuses. Join CBCR, and make a difference in the life of a potential recruit!

Contact careerbuilders@chicopeace.org for more information.

Scholarship Opportunities

CPJC is committed to helping young people find employment alternatives outside of the military to ensure their futures are brighter and more healthy and peaceful. For that reason our counter recruitment group has made this list of scholarships you can apply to online, as well as places you can find more.

CPJC Admin Programs

Peace Gardening 101

Family, Education, Fun!

Peace Gardening 101 is a comprehensive gardening workshop where you can learn:

  • Organic Gardening
  • Learning to build a healthy compost pile
  • Seed Care and Seed Saving
  • Herb Gardening
  • Tea Mixing
  • And More!

For more information, contact Colleen at riverbluesfarm@gmail.com or (239) 272-9661. Space is limited!

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CPJC Admin Actions, Programs

Voice of the Veteran Speaker Series

Voice of the Veteran is an ongoing speaker series featuring veterans sharing their experience in the military with no media slant, recruiter advertising, or entertainment industry glorification of violence.  Hear from primary sources about war and learn about what it is actually like to be in the military.

We have had Army veteran Major John Crosby (retired) who served from 1984 until 2004 and participated in Operation Just Cause and Iraqi Freedom presented February 2016.  Marine veteran Corporal Isaac Zenk who also grew up moving around as the son of an Air Force officer and served himself from 2004-2008 and in Iraq twice presented March 2016. And Corporal Ron Toppi presented his story April 2016 of time in the Marine Corps in the 1980’s.  These were the first presentations and we hope to have one a month during the California State University, Chico academic year so check here for the upcoming semester presentations by veterans on their time in the military.

This fall of 2016, we have another 3 Speakers lined up with Navy veteran Bill Mash serving from 1978-1982 sharing his story September 21st at 7:30PM going over his experiences as a submariner.  Phil Elkins shared his saga in the Vietnam War as an Army draftee on October 19th at 7:30PM.  The last presentation in November was Rev. Jessie Olson who was in the Army in the 90’s as a female soldier who also has a lot of experience helping thousands of veterans after her time in the military as a Veteran Service Officer.

CPJC Admin Resources

A Community Hub

The core of CPJC is the Center itself—a community hub where activists on a range of peace and justice issues can gather, organize, retreat, and plan. The Center’s meeting space can be reserved for one-time meetings, recurring weekly or monthly gatherings, or simply visited by anyone interested in learning about peacemaking and the efforts underway in Chico and the north state region.

Reserve the Center for your next gathering!