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NOVEMBER ACTION PROJECT

November is Thanksgiving in the United States. It is a holiday where we take the time to give thanks for all of the blessings that we have. This month we are asking you all to join us in being thankful for the things we have that we can easily take for granted. More specifically we ask that you join us in gratitude for something as simple as our winter coats. This month we ask that you donate winter coats that you do not use any more to either a local homeless shelter, local coat distribution center or distribute the coats directly to the homeless of your area. If you would like to take it a step further you can organize your own coat drive and inspire your coworkers, neighbors, or group members to give the gift of warmth this winter. We have the unique ability to be able to meet individuals immediate needs this month while also letting them know that they are valued and cared for. As always we would love to hear from you about how this Action Project goes through pictures, blogs and video. Email any of these to
Action@thelovealliance.net.

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PAST PROJECTS
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OCTOBER ACTION PROJECT

October is Fair Trade Month. For those of you who do not know what Fair Trade is these are products that have been bought from non-exploited workers (i.e. not made by slaves or in sweatshops). Unfortunately many individuals have no idea that many of the products we buy are made from exploited workers. If we can create a demand for fair trade products, we can send a message to the producers that we will not stand for exploitation of human beings to simply save a few cents.

With that said, this month your goal as a group is to 1. Choose one item you regularly buy this month, find a fair trade alternative, and purchase that alternative this month (i.e. chocolate, clothing, coffee etc.). 2. Let us know what fair trade alternative you found by emailing us at action@thelovealliance.net. We will be posting this list on our new website. 3. If a store you normally shop at does not sell fair trade alternatives it is super important that you request fair trade either directly through a manager or in their comment box. As we start asking where things are made we will start changing the social climate of the society we live in. Not sure how your favorite stores producers treat their workers? Research it and if you find out they have negative practices then approach a manager with your concern or write a letter to their corporate offices. 4. Educate, educate, educate. Educate yourselves and your community more on these issues. Many people have no idea that many of the items they buy are made unfairly. Beyond that they many times have no clue that there are fairly made alternatives. Lets work to change that this month.

Last September's Action Project was probably one of our most participated in projects of the year. Due to its popularity we thought we would make this project an annual tradition. With that said, this month we will be having our second annual Love Alliance fall cleaning. 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. Last year we saw people give away old CD players 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 last year. As you compile your stuff to give away weigh everything that you are donating and message us back your totals. Then we can really visualize the impact we are having. Last year groups had some healthy competition to see who could collect the most amount of donations. We saw individual groups donate over 1,000 lbs. We are positive we can exceed last year's group totals. You can decide on where you would like your donations go. We will be donating ours to a local thrift store in our area dedicated to homeless outreach. For a list of places to donate your items visit www.justgive.org.

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AUGUST ACTION PROJECT

Since the publicity we have received from winning the Myspace Impact Awards we have had so many passionate people join The Love Alliance community. One of these passionate people gave us a great idea for this month's Action Project. August is a big month for kids as they are all starting to go back to school. With going back-to-school comes back-to-school shopping. For most kids this is one of the few fun things about finishing up their summer break. Unfortunately, due to finances, there are a large number of children in school today that are not able to purchase all of the supplies their school is requesting. This brings a lot of shame to the kids as they have to tell their teacher and ultimately makes doing their work much more difficult. This month we will be giving school supplies to schools so that they can distribute them to children in need. Education plays a huge part in breaking the cycle of poverty. Many young people in poverty see these obstacles such as buying supplies and become discouraged. Let's as a community encourage these young people in their education to help ensure they have a bright future. So here is what you can do: Collect school supplies this month such as pens, pencils, markers, crayons, notebooks, notebook paper and donate them to your local school to be distributed to the children who are most in need. You may want to call the school and request a school supply list and work from there. Also don't be the only one in your group to donate supplies this month. Be sure to encourage your friends and family to take part in this project as well. We are excited to see everyone impact children's lives and self esteem in such a great way through seemingly simple means. If you have any questions about this month's Action Project email Action@thelovealliance.net.

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JULY ACTION PROJECT

So summer is in full effect and the mosquitos have definitely returned. Being at the festivals getting bit up by mosquito’s got our wheels turning. To those of us living in the west, a mosquito bite is generally nothing more than a nuisance. But if we by chance were born in many other parts in the world these little pesky bugs change from a nuisance to a threat. Did you know that every 30 seconds a person dies from the preventable/treatable disease malaria? Most of these deaths are children. This awful disease is spread by mosquito bites. These bites primarily happen while individuals are sleeping. While this problem is so large the solution is so simple; bed nets. These insecticide treated bed nets can sleep up to four individuals and will work for up to four years. For only $10 we can buy and ship a net to a family in need. Not only will these nets affect the individual family receiving it but it will also greatly effect the community. Families without nets will also be greater protected from this disease as mosquitos are killed off within the area due to the nets being treated by insecticide. While we would love to see each of you raise enough money to buy thousands of nets we are not asking that this month. Rather we ask that you focus on collecting or putting away $10 by the end of this month. This means that by the end of the month you will have put together enough money to provide a family a life saving bed net that will provide them protection for the next four years. Of course, if you would like to go beyond raising $10 then by all means go crazy. But our goal is to see each of us provide one net this month. This is what we do, seemingly small things that make a huge impact on individuals and communities. As always be creative and go with this action project as you see fit. At the end of the month you can either purchase your net/s via Compassion International’s website or send your checks to us made payable to “The Love Alliance” with “Mosquito Nets” in the memo for our large, end of the month purchase. You can send all checks to:

If you plan to purchase the nets yourself, please let us know how many you purchased so that we can measure the impact we are having on your community and the world.

So as you all know, this month is The Love Alliance’s birthday. So we were thinking, what else screams 1-year-old birthday than toys? Obviously, we have very little personal use for toys. But we do know of some children who are in desperate need of a childhood. Did you know that families with children make up 40% of the U.S. homeless population? And this is just within the U.S., street children riddle the streets of countries all over the world. This thought can be staggering. While of course homeless individuals have a lot of practical needs such as clothes, this month we are looking a little deeper into the emotional needs of these children. They have had no say as to what family or circumstances they have been born into. But still, because of their home life they struggle to hold onto being worry free fun loving children. This month we are doing what we can to bring a little fun to the lives of homeless children in our community. We encourage everyone to donate at least one toy to your local homeless shelter. (To find a homeless shelter in your area, click here or here) These toys of course should be new or like new if they are used, as we want to these children to know that they are both loved and valued. This month let’s send these children the simple message that life has not, that they are worthy of good things. So get your gift together, and encourage your friends, family and co-workers to also donate at least one gift this month. As small as this project may seem at first glance, we 100% believe the potential impact it may have on a life. When we believe we are valuable when we are young we take this self worth with us into adulthood. This month, through the simple gift of toys, we are investing into the futures of children by sending them the message that they are valuable, loved and worthy of good things.

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MAY ACTION PROJECT

Now to announce this month’s Action Project. If you’ve been around The Love Alliance community long enough you know that we are extremely outward focused. This month The Love Alliance needs a little T.L.C. We know we need to be at these festivals because of the thousands upon thousands of people we will be able to directly reach to educate and infiltrate their communities. But We Need Your Help! Right now the biggest need our organization has is for money. So for this month’s action project we are asking you all to help raise or donate money to make this summer tour possible. We're leaving at the beginning of June for our first festival, so we'll all have the whole month to make this tour happen. There are so many ways you can help us make it on the road this summer. Here are some ideas: you can hold a loose change drive, bake sale, benefit concert, take up a donation at school, work, church or home. We are confident that there will be a huge response from our Love Alliance community to meet our huge need. All donations can be made via credit or debit through our secure donations link in this newsletter or on our website. Or if you would like to send a check, all checks can be made out to “The Love Alliance” and sent to P.O. Box 111431- Palm Bay, FL 32911. Thank you all in advance for participating in this month’s action project. We are confident that there will be a huge response from our Love Alliance community to meet our huge need.

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APRIL ACTION PROJECT

Being that this month is Earth Day and Arbor Day, naturally we will be remembering the environment this month for our Action Project. The way we treat the environment today will effect generations to come. Let’s all make a commitment that we will be a positive impact on the environment as a posed to a drain on our planets limited resources. This month we will be cleaning up our neighborhoods. We encourage you all to grab some used grocery bags and get together with friends, family and coworkers to pick up trash in your area. Of course we urge you to be extremely careful if you decide to do a road clean up. The Love Alliance group in our area of Florida will be doing a beach clean up. You may not have a beach in your community, but unfortunately no matter where you go there is trash to be cleaned up. Another activity you may want to do with friends, family or coworkers is to chip in to buy a tree and plant it somewhere in your area. What ever you choose to do this month, be it a community clean up, planting a tree, or both, these are things that we as a community can come around. Make an event of it with your friends, family and/or coworkers. Be a part of not only changing the environment in a positive way, but of also changing the perceptions of the people around you. We really want to see you in action this month. So take lots of pictures and video and send them to Action@thelovealliance.net so we can post them on our website and show others what you are doing.

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MARCH ACTION PROJECT

March 8th is International Woman’s Day. When thinking about how we can honor the women of the world in March we asked ourselves, what is a social injustice that largely affects women? With that in mind we have decided to make human trafficking the focus of this months Action Project. Did you know that there are more slaves in the world today than when it was legal during the transatlantic slave trade? Did you also know that woman and children are most likely to be trafficked? Did you also know that modern day slaves have produced many of the items in our local stores? This month in honor of the women of the world who are plagued by this injustice we will be writing our senators and government representatives asking that they do everything possible to eliminate our countries role in encouraging human trafficking. We will ask our senator’s and government representatives to push for legislation that criminalizes the sale of products that have been made by slaves. The supply of slaves in the world will decrease as the world lowers its demand for them. This is a practical way we can lower our demand. Below is a link to a form letter for those of you in the U.S. along with a link to find your senator’s information. We have also formed another letter for those of you outside the U.S. to send to your government representatives. We encourage everyone reading this newsletter to take the time to send this letter to your senator or representative. Then once you have sent your letter, get all of your friends and family to send the letter as well. The best way we can honor the women of the world this month is by giving them a voice so that they can no longer be ignored. You have the opportunity to do that through this letter, we hope you will take it.

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FEBRUARY ACTION PROJECT - SPREAD THE LOVE

As we all know, February is the month of love. So naturally The LOVE Alliance's focus will be on love this month. Showing love as a lifestyle is a great habit to form, so we will be doing just that this month. For the whole month of February, not just Valentine's Day, we will be showing love to those who might not regularly receive it. It's really easy to show love to our friends and family, but what about those who it might be a little more stretching to show love to? There are a ton of places we can go to do this, visiting elderly at nursing homes, playing with kids at homeless shelters, volunteering at an AIDS clinic, hanging out with and talking to homeless people. There are a lot of tangible ways we can show love, but sometimes the first step to helping a victim of injustice is by giving them back the dignity of being an individual who is worthy of time, love and attention. So this month we will be cultivating our ability to give love to those who are on the fringe of society. We also encourage everyone to aim at showing love to everyone you come in contact with this month. Now to clarify, we are not saying to be falsely show love, rather we are saying to make the choice that regardless of your own insecurities and preconceived notions about people you will love them because we are all worthy of love regardless of where we are in life.

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JANUARY '08 ACTION PROJECT - ELECTRICITY DIET

Every New Year countless individuals make resolutions to go on a diet. Well in the spirit of this popular resolution, this month and long term The Love Alliance is going on a bit of a diet of its own. This month we will be dieting electricity. 'How do you diet electricity?' you may ask. Well in order to understand how you can diet electricity you will need to have a base knowledge of it. Firstly we must understand that the production of electricity causes a lot of environmentally damaging emissions. This is why we need to be careful to only use what we need. Did you know that 75% of the electricity used by our appliances (i.e. anything you plug in) is used while they are PLUGGED IN but TURNED OFF. So right now take a look at your dormant plugged in toaster, or your television that has not been on for hours; they are using and ultimately wasting most of their energy when they are off. But don't worry you don't have to continue to waste energy; there is a solution for this. This month we will be and we encourage all of you to unplug everything when it is not in use. For plug in items such as entertainment centers and computers, plug everything in to a surge protector strip and turn the strip off when it is not in use. Another thing we encourage you to do this month to diet electricity is to change at least one, if not all, of the light bulbs in your home or office from regular to a compact fluorescent light bulbs. While a regular light bulb may use 60 watts of electricity to operate, a compact fluorescent light bulb only needs 13 watts of electricity. By simply switching out our light bulbs we will be conserving 3/4 of the amount of electricity that we would have been unwittingly using. You will not only be saving energy but you will be saving money on your electric bill as well. So join us this month and long term for our New Years resolution energy diet. If you would like to learn more about the environment and other practical ways you can make a difference towards cleaning it up for ourselves and future generations visit the Environment section of our website.

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As we all know, we are in the holiday season. For so many of us this is a time of excitement and joy. But for many people right in our communities it is a time of anxiety and an even bigger reminder of their struggle. This month instead of choosing just one thing we will do, we are leaving it a little open ended because during this season there is just so much that we can do. Here are some action projects you can do this month. The first thing you may choose to do is to give gifts to children in need. You can give them to the major gift drives such as Angel Tree and Toys for Tots, or you can more directly meet the needs of your community by going to a local school in a low income area, a church or hospital. The neat thing about giving through a venue such as a school is that the social workers in the school know the needs of the children. Often they have lists of families that without our donations will have nothing for Christmas. If you are planning on giving gifts, I would strongly recommend starting on this project ASAP as gifts are often distributed by the middle of December. If you don't have the ability to give gifts, you can find somewhere to volunteer your time. There is an abundance of places to volunteer all the time, but it is especially meaningful during this season as it is a season that so many individuals feel invisible. We have the ability to give of our time and attention to let them know that they are worthy of life and love. Here are some suggestions for where you and your friends can volunteer your time: a homeless shelter, nursing home, soup kitchen, a children's hospital, or volunteer to wrap gifts for a gift drive, and the list goes on and on. I would like to quickly note that if you are planning on volunteering it would be wise to call ahead to make sure that you can.

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The November action project is focusing on the clean water epidemic. You may want to go read up more about clean water on the issues page of The Love Alliance website and from the clean water sites listed in the links section of the website. The reason we are focusing on clean water for the month of November is because while in our part of the world we are just coming on our cold months, in the parts of the world that clean water is the biggest problem (such as sub-Saharan Africa) they are just about to come on some of the hottest months of their year because they are below the equator. The November action project is a loose change drive for clean water. Cut a slot in the top of a water bottle (small/gallon sized & recycled) and collect loose change to help aid those who are dying of thirst. When it comes to clean water every penny counts, just $1 will give clean water to an African dying of thirst for an entire year. We understand that sometimes individuals can get overwhelmed when it comes to raising money. We want to emphasize that this is not about raising more money than anyone else. Rather it is about informing people and saving lives. Even if you only raise $1 next month, you have potentially saved one persons life. We encourage you to get creative with this months project. At the end of the month you can send your final checks made out to "The Love Alliance" with "1000 Wells Project" written in the memo to:The Love Alliance, 1542 South Wickham Rd., West Melbourne FL 32904. Then we will be making one grand total donation to Blood:Water Missions 1000 Wells Project. While we are planning on putting our own wells in Africa one day, we strongly believe in the work that Blood:Water Mission is doing and want to support their efforts as The Love Alliance the best we can. To read more about Blood: Water Mission you can go to www.bloodwatermission.com.

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OCTOBER '07 ACTION PROJECT

October is Fair Trade month. Fair trade products are products that have been produced by non-exploited workers. Unfortunately exploited workers, many of which are enslaved and/or children, have produced many of the products in our stores. This month we are taking a stand as a community to say that buying products from factories that exploit human beings is not acceptable. We encourage you to look at the products you buy this month and if it has been made in South America or other known exploitation areas? Does it have a Fair Trade Certified seal on it? This month while shopping we encourage you to find the fair trade alternative. Choose to buy sweatshop free clothes. Decide that you will not drink coffee or chocolate that was made a few cents cheaper by the blood sweat and tears of exploited human beings. If a coffee shop or a store in your area does not offer fair trade alternatives then suggest in writing that they do. Make them aware of the atrocity they are supporting by not offering fair trade alternatives. We encourage groups to focus on this project together. Turn your communities into fair trade communities. Make the people of your community aware of the exploitation of workers around the world. For more information on slavery in the world and a list of fair trade alternatives visit the Enslaved section in the Issues section of our website. You can also visit transfairusa.org for a list of stores that sell fair trade products.

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This month we are having a fall cleaning, The Love Alliance style. We all have things, lots of things, so many things that we don't even know what we have. This month lets go through our stuff and give away anything that we no longer wear, use or want. 36.5 million people in the U.S. alone are living in poverty. We have the ability to ease these struggling individuals burden. What we give they will not have to buy, allowing them to hopefully get ahead. Let's have fun with this months project. Weigh everything that you are donating and message us back or email us at Action@thelovealliance.net with your totals. Then, so long as everyone remembers to send us their weights we can have a grand total of the impact we are having as a community of people who are committing to making a difference towards social injustice. For a list of places to donate your items visit www.justgive.org.

AUGUST '07 ACTION PROJECT - FEED THE HOMELESS

As all monthly projects, we wanted this project to be simple enough that anyone from any walk of life can participate. There is so much injustice in the world that it is extremely easy for our hearts to get lost in Africa forgetting that there are not only hurting people in Africa but they also live in our very own communities. If we are only saddened by suffering over seas and not by the suffering on our own streets then our desire to help will never last because likely it is a desire to get involved with a cause rather than the human being the cause is representing. Human suffering is human suffering no matter where it is, we must not stand for it in any part of the world, especially in our own communities.

So with that said, this month our project will be addressing an injustice that is in every community of the world, homelessness. At least one day this month we encourage each of you to go out with a group of friends and hand out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to hungry homeless people. We should all have the supplies in our houses to make these, but if not it will only cost max $5 to make a bunch of sandwiches. We encourage you when you go out to not just hand the sandwiches to the people and run, but to stick around and talk to them. For more information on homelessness visit the Homeless section of our website under our Issues page.