The Love Alliance Newsletter #27
September 4, 2009

Our summer tour is over and fall is being ushered in.  We had an amazing time this summer and once again welcome to everyone new to The Love Alliance community.  We are excited to be home and to start focusing on some bigger things.

LAST MONTH

HAPPENINGS
We finished our summer tour this past month while in the northeast.  We recapped our time at Soulfest in New Hampshire and Kingdom Bound in New York in our last newsletter, but looking back it was overwhelming at the response that we had at these festivals.  These were two of our busiest and most successful festivals of the summer.  It is encouraging to meet so many people who are already educated and actively involved in the social justice issues we represent. 

After Kingdom Bound we had a week off in NYC and then made our way to Purple Door.  Purple Door has always been one of our favorite festivals and this marked our third year there.  This year we were able to share a sponsorship with our good friends at Stand True.  If you were there you probably saw our banner on main stage and may have seen us on main stage throwing out some shirts.  Overall it was a great weekend.

To quickly recap the summer, the success was overwhelming.  In the end we traveled to 11 different music festivals, handed out over 60,000 flyer cards, received 18 group applications, and talked to countless people.  It was encouraging to see people from last summer and hear how our cards and resources are being used.  So many people told us that they have kept our cards and they are either on their wall, refrigerator, in a book or their Bible.  We even had several people tell us that they had framed them.  We also heard from individuals who had used the facts from the cards and our website as a resource for different school projects and papers.  It was also great to meet so many new people.  We were privileged to be a part of opening so many eyes to these issues by just handing them a card or talking for a few minutes.  We were amazed at how many people are still unaware about what is going on in the world and in our own communities.  Our new "Remember The Homeless" card went over great and we had so many request for "Remember the Homeless" merchandise which will hopefully be coming soon.  Thank you so much to our amazing interns, Candice and Brian, and everyone else who volunteered at the booth, handed out stickers, etc.  Thank you to Vitamin Water for sponsoring the second leg of our tour, your drinks hydrated our tour team as well as other vendors and dehydrated patrons.  All in all, we had a great summer and are already making plans for next year. 

We encourage you to read our intern Candice's thoughts on this summer.  Check out her blog post on our website here: Summer Tour Recap.

ACTION PROJECT
Last month we felt like we needed to revive last year's Action Project due to the worldwide recession.  This project proved to be more needed this year than any time in the recent past.  We collected and gave school supplies to schools so that they could distribute them to children who could not afford the supplies.  It was great to hear from individuals and groups that participated in this project and to even hear about students collecting supplies for other students in their school or area.   

THIS MONTH

HAPPENINGS
Even though our summer tour is over, that doesn't mean festivals and events are done.  Our intern Candice Gordon along with our friend Justin Soderberg will be running The Love Alliance booth at Revelation Generation Festival this weekend (Today and Tomorrow, 9/4-9/5) in Frenchtown, NJ.  If you are attending make sure to stop by the booth and tell them hi.  If you are attending and would like to volunteer please email us asap at action@thelovealliance.net or just stop by the booth for further instructions.

We will also have The Love Alliance booth at Awakening Festival in Leesburg, VA, on September 26th.  Again if you will be attending make sure to stop by the booth and/or if you will be attending and would like to volunteer, email us at action@thelovealliance.net
 
We received an amazing response to our new merchandise this summer and have received emails asking when it all would be available on the website.  Now that tour is over, all of our tour exclusive merchandise is available in the webstore.  We have added the White "Educate Yourself. Take Action." t-shirt in crew neck and v-neck; the grey tri-blend Logo Tank Top; Love Alliance Sunglasses; and our brand new "Remember to Act" Zip Up Hoody.  You can visit our webstore and purchase these items now.

ACTION PROJECT
This month we will be holding our 3rd Annual Love Alliance Fall Cleaning.  This Action Project has probably been one of our most participated in projects. We encourage you to go through your piled up stuff this month and give away anything you no longer wear, use or want. Be sure to not confine your giving to just clothes. We have seen people give away old CD players, computers, and even a car. I think many times we look at the needs in the world and feel like they are so big that there is nothing we can do to help. But this simply is not true. This month you have the ability to give away things that are cluttering your life to someone who is in dire need of it. Whether that is a pair of shoes you never wear, or an old computer that is collecting dust. Lets be sure to have just as much fun with this year's Fall Cleaning as we did the last two years. As you compile your stuff to give away, weigh everything that you are donating and let us know your totals. Then we can really visualize the impact we are having and try and beat that total number next year. In the last two years combined, we have seen thousands of pounds donated.  It is your decision as to where you would like your donations to go.  The Love Alliance Melbourne Group has donated to a local non-profit thrift store the past two years.  Every town should have a place like this, if not you can donate to nationwide non-profits like Salvation Army and Goodwill.