ACTION ALERT: Support the community hub at 489 Midland Ave
ONSITE ACTIONS
—Come to 489 Midland Ave Staten Island, NY 10306 to stand in support
—Volunteers requested to help move the hub to 100% private property
OFFSITE ACTON
—Demand the Mayor’s office end community hub eviction and instead support hubs with space and equipment
—Public Advocate’s office: (212) 669-7250 9am-5pm EMAIL: GetHelp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov
The community-run network of support for food, volunteering, supplies, clothing, and human services is an essential part of the New York City recovery efforts, and the mayor’s office wants to shut it down immediately. The mayor’s office is calling upon local police forces to “clear all outdoor sites” effective immediately. We are calling on all New Yorkers to advocate on behalf of these community run hubs that provide essential services to those whom the city and federal government, and support agencies, have under-served, neglected, or abandoned.
We call on the city, service organizations and police to support these crucial hubs by maintain location and services to community, offering tents, generators, and storage pods for supplies or finding free, nearby, and feasible medium to long term spaces where hubs can operate.
This Friday morning Staten Island police representing the mayor’s office have threatened eviction action against the crucial Staten Island hub at 489 Midland Avenue, in the heavily hit Midland Beach area. Aiman Youssef, a 42-year-old Syrian-American Staten Islander whose house was destroyed in the hurricane, has been running a 24/7 community pop up hub outside his property at 489 Midland Avenue since the day after the storm. He and a coalition of neighbors, friends and community members are serving hot food and offering cleaning supplies, non-perishables, medical supplies, and clothing to the thousands of residents who are still without heat, power, or safe housing. This popular hub is well-run, well-staffed, and has a constant hum of discussion, support, and advice as well as donations and pick ups and volunteer dispatch through another pop-up group, volunteers who call themselves “The Yellow Team.”
At the standing-room only Town Hall meeting at Staten Island’s New Dorp High School last night, Youssef was the first to raise his voice in the question and answer period. The community’s expression of extreme need and frustration with the lack of official support made for a contentious environment where city government officials offered few solutions. At one point borough president James Molinaro asked the audience “You wanna shut your mouth?” due to their increasingly loud demands for community support and housing solutions.
We ask all New Yorkers and Sandy supporters worldwide to not heed Molinaro’s demand, but to speak out as Youssef did. Ask the mayor’s office to support, not evict, the well-run community support hubs giving crucial services to New Yorkers in need.
If you missed last night's guerilla premiere of academy-award nominated director Josh Fox's new film "Occupy Sandy: A Human Response to the New Realities of Climate Change," you can watch it in its entirety above.
What Action can you take RIGHT NOW?
Join the Occupy Sandy efforts by visiting the website to plug in! OccupySandy.org
Together we can recover from Hurricane Exxon Mobil
Call Cuomo and tell him to BAN Drilling and Fracking for Natural Gas in NY State! NO MORE FOSSIL FUEL DEVELOPMENT!
(518) 474-8390 or mail:
The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
For the past month we have come together to support and rebuild communities broken by Hurricane Sandy. As Sharon Lerner wrote in the American Prospect, “the storm handed inequality activists an almost eerily perfect illustration of exactly what they see as wrong with our world.”
In this vein, over Thanksgiving Occupy Sandy joined with communities to share over 10,000 meals. Now we begin to come together to connect the dots from the storm, to climate change, to the reckless greed of the 1%-ers at the forefront of the fossil fuel industry.
The work is far from over, so join us. You can check out the Occupy Sandy Relief NYC Facebook page to get started, or follow @OccupySandy on Twitter.
-- from the ‘Your Inbox: Occupied’ team
TONIGHT, Wednesday, November 28, 6:30pm Occupy Sandy Guerilla Movie Premier with Josh Fox
Mystery Location - Text @ClimateCrime to 23559 or follow #climatecrime
Join academy-award nominated director Josh Fox (Gasland), Occupy Sandy Relief organizers, 350.org, The Other 98%, and The Illuminator for a Guerilla Premiere of Josh Fox’s new short film “Occupy Sandy: A Human Response to the New Realities of Climate Change,” which viscerally shows the damage left behind by the storm, highlights the heroic grassroots efforts of Occupy activists, and the upcoming fight with the fossil fuel industry. Dress warm, bring hot beverages, be prepared to move and to be moved.
TONIGHT, Wednesday, November 28, 9pm Occupy Sandy Volunteer Appreciation Night
The Bell House, 149 7th Street, Brooklyn(b/w 2nd-3rd Ave)
Take the F/G/R to 4th Ave - 9th St Station
You are cordially invited to kick back and relax for a few hours this week in appreciation of all of your hard work and dedication to Occupy Sandy relief! There will be LIVE dance beats from DJ RiMix as well as surprise musical performances & more! Drink specials and, of course, no cover charge!
DAILY, Volunteer to Clean-out homes in the Rockaways Sign Up at respondandrebuild.org/volunteer
Help residents clean and remove debris from their houses. You do not need specific skills for this type of work, just a willingness to get dirty and help. Experienced team leaders will guide your work efforts and keep you safe on the job. If you do have experience or skills in construction, demolition, engineering, or environmental assessment, please contact oscleanout@gmail.com.
Occupy Sandy NJ has been deploying mutual aid and solidarity to communities across New Jersey. Volunteers and donations have been pouring in from across the country. Now, the Transport Workers Union in Philadelphia has opened their warehouse space for long-term storage and dispatch needs.
John Johnson Jr., President of TWU Local 234 said,”TWU-234 is happy to oblige and help our brothers and sisters who are unfortunately in need. That includes the riding public and our members in PA, NY & NJ who cannot get to work to do their transit duties. We’re proud to take part in this effort.”
Local 234 facilities on North 2nd St below Spring Garden St are being used to house, sort and distribute the many items needed to help people get back on their feet. Unions and organizations from across the region have begun contacting the OccupySandy organization wanting to help, support and supply relief items to the still struggling victims.
Social-media-generated donations via Occupy Sandy NJ $58,000. More than $100,000 in “wedding registry” donations have arrived in Jersey City, and those supplies are now being moved around the area by volunteer drivers. Occupy Sandy NJ volunteers have been deployed to Union Beach, Moonachie, Hoboken, New Brunswick, Highland Park, Asbury Park, Belmar, Toms River, Manahawkin, Long Beach Island, Ocean City, and Atlantic City, among other places. Regional hubs are being developed in strategic locations and excess good are being dispatched from Occupy Sandy NYC to New Jersey.
Each night at 9pm, organizers from across the state meet on an InterOccupy conference call to debrief, share urgent needs, and plan the following days’ activities. These calls are open to the public, and have recently included callers from the American Federation of Teachers, the Sierra Club, various faith-based organizations, and even FEMA (the call registration link is available on the website).
Occupy Sandy NJ volunteer crews have been working throughout the state, delivering food to evacuees still living in hotels or homes without power, dispatching supplies throughout the state, and helping homeowners returning to their devastated communities with the hard, dirty, hazardous work of home demolition and remediation.
People in need of help (in the form of volunteers or supplies) and people interested in volunteering should register online at http://www.OccupySandyNJ.org/. Residents seeking help should be sure to fill out the “Community Needs Register & Individual Request Form.”
[DONATION REQUESTS - Occupy Sandy NJ at TWU will only be accepting the following items: for house clean-outs, waterproof boots, waterproof work-gloves, hazmat suits, heavy duty work-clothes, OSHA N95/N92 face masks, tarps, waterproof plastic bins, pry-bars, garbage bags, headlamps/flashlights, and batteries; for rebuilding, construction equipment, drywall, floorboards, lumber, joints, insulation, wiring, and hot water heaters; personal appliances, refrigerators, dishwashers, gas or electric ranges/ovens, newer-model personal computers, electric wheelchairs, & generators. We will accept no clothing but socks, underwear, heavy-duty winter coats, and house muck-out clothing. We will accept no food besides baby food and baby formula. Bottled water is welcome.]
Occupy Sandy is a coordinated recovery effort aimed at helping communities and individuals affected by Hurricane Sandy. We are a coalition dedicated to connecting volunteers to people in need, and establishing hubs for neighborhood resource distribution and community building. Our primary focus is solidarity and mutual aid, not charity and Band-Aids. These are our communities, and we are here for the long haul. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Members of this coalition are from Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Philadelphia, TWU Local 234, 350.org, and InterOccupy.
