Berkeley Partners for Parks

Sixth Annual

Peace Lantern Ceremony

Sunday, August 5, 2007
6:30 – 9:00 p.m.
North end of Aquatic Park, Berkeley

Things to bring

We provide all materials for decorating and assembling peace lanterns.

Bring a jacket; it gets cool around sundown, when we float the lanterns on the pond.

Bring your own food and drink; no food or cooking facilities are available at the site. We will have a portable restroom and hand-washing sink, plus a permanent restroom open across the pond at the Tinkers Workshop.

Bring a flashlight (especially if helping with clean-up, 9-10:30 p.m.).

If standing or sitting on the ground is not convenient for you, bring a folding chair for yourself; seating at picnic tables is extremely limited.

If you can lend any of the following to the ceremony, please bring them, LABELED with your name, phone number, and e-mail so we can ensure any lost items are returned to you. If lending something, check in at the volunteer table when you arrive. Also, please let us know by e-mail if you will be bringing these, and if so, how many of them:

• Folding tables and chairs (needed by 6 p.m.)
• Self-powered lamps (camping lanterns, battery-powered lanterns)
• Clipboards (needed by 6 p.m.)
• Walkie-talkies, cellphones that will work at Aquatic Park (if possible, we’d like to get these Saturday)

The event is free. Contributions cover the expenses. If you’d like, bring some cash or a check (payable to Progressive Portal) to drop in a donation container on one of the lantern-shade decorating tables.

Things to know

Parking: We’re reserving the parking lot at the north end of the lagoon for those with mobility limitations. Everyone else, please park along Bolivar Drive (turn LEFT at the base of Addison Street), or on Addison or other nearby streets, or behind the Sea Breeze store/cafe just west of the freeway (convenient access to the event via the pedestrian/bike overpass). If you know others who are coming, please consider carpooling. For transit information, click the “Transit Info” link at http://www.progressiveportal.org/lanterns/.

Please sign in when you arrive, on one of the clipboards on the volunteer table or the shade-decorating tables. We want to know who attended (and how many people) and to have your contact information for next year. We don’t share the information with any other group or use it for other purposes.

We will have 500 lantern shades. Depending on the size of the crowd, this means everyone will be able to decorate ONE lantern shade; if more than 500 people want to do so, we’ll need to share. (Each shade has four faces.)

When you have finished decorating your shade, please yield your chair to the next person. Sitting and conversing at the decorating tables keeps others waiting.

Even if you haven’t signed up http://www.progressiveportal.org/lanterns/volunteer.html beforehand, we welcome your volunteer help with assembling lanterns, teaching origami crane-folding, lighting lanterns and transporting to the water’s edge for the launching. Please check in at the volunteer table.

If you are situated near the water’s edge, please be mindful of safety. In particular, pay attention to young people running around. We want them to have fun, but with adults watching discreetly to make sure nobody has fallen or gotten hurt.

For first aid, check in at the volunteer table or ask anyone wearing a Staff tee-shirt; we’ll direct you to Leeza Vinogradov, who is a nurse and will have a first-aid kit.

Volunteer before/after the event

If you would like to do any of the following, let us know by responding to this e-mail or via our Web volunteer form.

Today — write a Letter to the Editor: If you have attended the event before, please spread the word about how beautiful and enjoyable it is by writing a Letter to the Editor of a local paper of your choice. Because time is so short, this should be done immediately, and e-mailed or faxed to the newspaper. Include mention that the event is this Sunday, Aug. 5, 6:30-9 p.m. at the north end of Aquatic Park, Addison St. near I-580, Berkeley. To find contact information for newspapers, CLICK HERE.

Early this week — post to Web calendars: We need help posting announcements of the event to Web calendars. Let us know how much time you can spend on this and we’ll provide the Web links and information.

Flyering: We need people to post our flyers around the Bay Area this week. Pick up flyers at The Mailbox Place, 2887 College Ave., Berkeley (at Russell, 1 block north of Ashby, facing College, across from the Global Exchange store). Open M-F 10-6, Sat. 11-5. Please e-mail us to say how many you’ll be taking and where you’ll post them) so we can replenish the supply of flyers.

Transportation: We need people to transport supplies to the event on Saturday and starting 2:30 p.m. the day of the event (possibly earlier). If you have a large vehicle (van, SUV, or small truck), that is helpful, but we also need people to ride along and help load/unload things. Fill out the volunteer form and check “transportation” or let us know by e-mail. We also need people (with vehicles, or helpers without vehicles) to transport items back to storage on Monday or Tuesday, Aug. 6 or 7.

Clean-up: We usually have been short of help to clean up from 9-10:30 p.m., and our exhausted core volunteers have ended up working late into the night. So, if you can stay afterwards to help, please let us know via the volunteer form or check in at the volunteer table when you arrive Sunday.

Did you take photos?

If you took photos of previous years’ events and have not previously submitted them to us, please contact Jeff Akeley (ABearius-AT-aol.com — change “-AT-” to “@”). Let us know whether we may post them on the Web and use them for future event publicity. We know several people took pictures last year, but only one person submitted them to us. Also contact Jeff if you’ll be taking photos this year and would like to share them with us.

/peace,

Steve Freedkin
Chairperson, Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission
Publisher, ProgressivePortal.org
2887 College Ave. #274, Berkeley, CA 94705-2154 USA
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