Help us to take part in West-Coast SPEAKING TOUR

Dear Friends,
The only GI-Coffeehouse outside of the U.S., The Clearing Barrel, in Kaiserslautern, Germany, needs your support.

A representative from The Clearing Barrel has the opportunity to go on a unique speaking tour in the U.S. between February and March, 2014, visiting various anti-war and veteran organizations as well as church and activists groups on the West Coast.

The tour aims to create awareness concerning the work performed by outreach centers and promote a network in support of these worthy ventures.

The Clearing Barrel, seat of the Military Counseling Network, is part of the GI Rights Hotline. It is the only non-profit and non-governmental organization overseas providing a place for U.S. military personnel, veterans and their families to socialize, find support and receive free, confidential and accurate information on U.S. military regulations and practices.

The Clearing Barrel’s representative will accompany the two GI-Coffeehouses located in the U.S. on this tour: Under The Hood at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, and Coffee Strong at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Lakewood, Washington.

In order to enable a speaker from The Clearing Barrel - Military Counseling Network - in Germany to take part in this important tour, we are asking for your donations*. We are aiming to collect approximately $ 2000. for travel expenses.

Please help us with your contributions to make it possible for us to be part of this tour.

Sincerely, Meike Capps-Schubert

ABOUT THE TOUR:
A very unique speaking tour, made up of military families, veterans and activists from three modern day GI coffeehouses, will tour west coast cities in mid-February through early March, 2014.

Speakers will represent GI outreach centers near Fort Hood, Texas, near Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, and near a cluster of US bases in Germany, including Ramstein Airbase, AFRICOM and US Army Europe headquarters.

Respectively, these GI Cafes are called Under The Hood, Coffee Strong and the Clearing Barrel.

This is the first time these far flung GI coffeehouses have undertaken such a joint effort. We would very much like you and your organization to be a part of it.

Participants in the various cities in California, Oregon and Washington will have the opportunity to learn first hand about the successes and challenges of today's practitioners of the GI Coffeehouse movement. There will be videos, slide shows, and discussions about the future of these important centers of information and resistance. Local musicians, artists and activists will also participate.

Would you and your organization like to co-sponsor this GI coffeehouse tour?

The GI cafes offer counseling, support, alternative information, camaraderie and a safe space from which to socialize and organize. This kind of support makes sense. It values the lives and humanity of those men and women who, without better opportunities, find themselves in the US military in a time of perpetual war.

You or your organization could be a co-sponsor of the entire tour. We only ask that you:

1) Lend your good name to publicity for the tour
2) Publicize the tour through your own networks
3) Consider making a donation of $100-$500 to help cover tour expenses.

A donation of any amount will be much appreciated. Any funds raised on the tour will go to the operating expenses of the three GI Cafes, which are all organized as non-profits.

We look forward to hearing from you as we put the tour schedule together. We are planning to be in San Diego and Los Angeles on Feb. 14-15; we will be in the SF Bay Area on the weekend of Feb. 21-23, and we will end up in Portland, Seattle and Bellingham, Washington (Feb. 28-March 2). And there will be many stops in between.

If you would like more information about becoming a tour sponsor, and/or about helping to organize a gathering in your local veterans hall, church or even your home, please contact me at projectsafehaven@hotmail.com or 206-499-1220