Check out some cool stuff this weekend: (This is from Mr Johnny’s)

Home Slice Pizza’s 4th Annual Carnival-O-Pizza
December 05 (Sat) – 12:00 – 7:00 pm, 1415 South Congress Ave. Bring the kids down to SoCo for games, carnival-style booths, raffles, live music, break dancers, contests, pizza and much more! Ticket proceeds benefit Austin Pets Alive. Free Admission.

Holiday Sing Along and Tree Lighting
December 05 (Sat) – 6:00 – 9:00pm , South Steps of the Capital & Congress Avenue. Join John Aielli, host of KUT’s music program Eklektikos, for the annual Sing-Along. Follow John’s lead through your favorite carols, watch the lighting of the Capitol Christmas tree. A holiday stroll with music and activities down Congress Avenue to follow.   Enjoy free admission to the Austin Museum of Art with hands-on family art making activities and local performances.  Free. (512) 475-8071

3rd Annual Holiday Light Spectacular
December 05-26, (Thurs-Sun) 6:00-9:30pm, The Grove at Southpark Meadows, IH-35 & Slaughter Lane. Visit this holiday light display featuring 100,000 choreographed lights and lasers set to popular holiday sounds. Show times are 6pm, 7pm, 8pm and 9pm. Local entertainment takes place between shows. Special Operation Blue Santa night on Saturday, December 12th. Bring a new unwrapped toy. Free. 877-258-5879

RSVP for this renewal project via Facebook!!

Hey friends, this Sunday (9/27) we will be having a renewal service project!

All friends of Soma Austin and Love Austin are invited to join us in bringing renewal to an East Austin neighborhood of fourplexes that is experiencing the cyclical oppression of poverty and instability.  Specifically we will be helping a family of missionaries who intentionally moved to East Austin to serve that community and bring the hope of Jesus to them.  We want to come alongside this family and serve their neighborhood by helping to clean it up, and make some safety and beautification improvements.

What type of projects will we be doing?

• Painting over graffiti
• Yard clean-up/trash removal (lots of it)
• Landscaping (trimming trees and shrubs, maybe some planting)
• Play Area for kids
• Patching some potholes
• Yard Sale (really a Yard Free)

What can I bring?

1. Yourself…the most important
2. Shovels
3. Gloves for yard work
4. Paint brushes or rollers

Really all we need you to bring is #1, but the rest is all helpful too!

Please RSVP via Facebook

To help us properly prepare for the work and food please RSVP via Facebook, which will help us be good stewards of our time and monies.  RSVP here by Friday.  (You can still come, but we would love it if you RSVP by then.)

Got Kids?

This is a kid friendly event! We will have a playground and a space inside of the Spenrath home for them to rest. We will rotate people keeping an eye on the kiddos.

Time & Location

• Day/Time: Sunday 9/27 at 9am – 1pm
• Address: 3300 Vintage Hills Cove #A, Austin, TX 78723 (Google Map)

Questions?

If you’ve got questions, you can email Mike Burke, Project Coordinator, at mburke43@gmail.com or (206) 229-7319.
]]> http://loveaustin.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/renewal-project-sunday/feed/ 0 Jacob http://loveaustin.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/campaign-to-end-poverty-yard-sale/ http://loveaustin.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/campaign-to-end-poverty-yard-sale/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:36:43 +0000 Jacob Vanhorn http://loveaustin.org/?p=92 ]]> Soma Austin is having a garage sale! Why? We are partnering with the non-profit HELP (Help End Local Poverty) to raise money for their Campaign to End Local Poverty in order to build a orphanage in Zimbabwe. HELP has a goal to raise $25,000 by the end of the year to build an orphanage in Zimbabwe for some kids whose parents have either abandoned them or died, and they have no where else to go. These kiddos are currently having to sleep outside of the existing very small orphanage because there is not enough room. The goal: to build a bigger orphanage that can house everyone.

It’s very simple and here’s how Soma Austin can help reach this goal:

1. SELL: Selling our stuff that we don’t need, want, or are willing to sacrifice.
2. GIVE: Giving the proceeds to HELP (They will send 100% of all funds donated to Zimbabwe)
3. HELP: Help by loving those in need.

Our garage sale will be on Saturday, September 12th and all we need is for you to donate some items! No need to tag or mark with prices, just give us your stuff!

Check out the Campaign to End Poverty website for more info on the campaign.

For questions and to arrange giving us your stuff to sell, please email Sherry Birk.

We invite you to join us and be a part of a round table discussion, geared towards both celebrating Austin and working to bring renewal and restoration to our community.  We will discuss what we love about the city, what we would love to see renewed and spend some time collaborating about the future of Love Austin.  See you Saturday!

It's My Park! Day

Thanks to all who participated in the It’s My Park Day! clean up with the Austin Parks Foundation.  There we 61 different locations and over 2,000 volunteers and we were glad to be part of that crew.  We worked on Lower Shoal Creek between Cesar Chavez and 6th Street.  By the time we were done, we pulled out enough debris to fill one of those large trash containers that they deliver with a truck, yeah the big ones.

We pulled out chain link fencing, including whole gates, an ancient a/c window unit that seemed to weigh over 200 lbs including all the mud and gunk that accumulated in it, dragging it up about 30 narrow steps, also several pipes from 3 inch diameter to 10 inch diameter (leftover from construction projects), various mug-caked bicycle parts, bags and bags of trash, and bags and bags of abandoned mud-caked blankets and encampment debris.  I think the a/c unit was the surprise of the day, the fence with the gate attached with roots growing through it was the ‘dig out’ of the day, and the bags and bags and bags of abandoned, mud-caked, urine soaked blankets and debris was the ‘team-effort’ of the day.

About half the trash pile and it goes deep too.

One thing I notice when cleaning up our parks is how many people ride their bikes, jog and go for walks while noticing the debris but don’t join the clean up efforts.  We did get a couple of ‘Thanks for what you do” and I was super pumped to a runner and a cycler stop their workout and jump into the action.  Once they jumped in, they were two of the most committed workers present.

Which brings me to our heart for Love Austin.  These guys jumped in and cleaned the city they loved and the city they enjoyed.  They didn’t merely see Austin as a resource to use and enjoy, but also a city to serve and renew.  That is what we would like to do with Love Austin.  We desire to be a tribe thats loves Austin by enjoying it, and that loves Austin by renewing it.  It goes both ways for us.  And both are motivated by our love for Austin.

We would love for you to join us in our efforts and invite others to join as we Love Austin.

Join us and participate in Love Austin on:

• Facebook
• Twitter www.twitter.com/loveaustintx
• Subscribe via RSS

It’s official! We are on the roster to serve the City of Austin at , “It’s My Park Day”,  on Saturday, March 7th. This event is put on annually by the Austin Parks Foundation, which is a non-profit dedicated to supporting and improving parks in Austin, Texas.

There are a considerable number of projects to participate in for Park Day, and we have elected to work along-side another team in the Lower Shoal Creek Area, from 9am-1pm. We will begin at Cesar Chavez and working our way up to 6th Street, clearing debris and picking up trash.

For more information, or to sign up to participate, please email Emily Bryant no later than March 3rd. Participants, please include your name, email, phone number and t-shirt size, and you will recieve more information on what to bring, what to wear, and what to expect.

Join us! It’s going to be a blast getting to Love Austin, with you!

One such opportunity coming up is the Corporate Social Responsibility conference on February 27th that is sponsored by the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas.

This conference will:

• Elevate the CSR conversation among Austin’s best companies
• Celebrate successful CSR initiatives in Central Texas
• Help to create or improve your company’s CSR strategy

They will have a plenary speaker as well as breakout sessions.  Download a flyer for more info and register here.

We are still an early work in progress, but subscribe to the RSS feed and check back often for updates.