In an initiative begun by California college students, and joined by equality groups around the nation, we ask that you join us on March 5th for a moment that will make history! Please, come to San Francisco on March 5th and show the nation just how important equality is to you. We know that we’re asking a lot in this current economy, but this is huge! People are finding tickets for only $100 on Travelocity and Virgin Airlines. Orbitz is another great option. Use Kayak and compare all of the sites across the board. If you’re in CA, there are ride share options and buses leaving from almost every campus (scroll to the bottom of the main event page to get more info on CA travel).
If you can’t attend, and would like to add your impact, please wear white all day in honor of the 18,000 marriages that occured before Prop 8. Also, MEUSA needs to raise $30,000 immediately to ensure that everyone in attendance can witness the opening arguments. The money will go toward getting a jumbotron in front of the courthouse for everyone to see. Please DONATE HERE (every single dollar counts!!!).
10 Responses
i just checked the eride share site and there are 4 listings for people offering rides and 5 listings from folks who need a lift. um, doesn’t seem likes there are even dozens trying to get here on march 5. are you all sure you’ll get more than a few hundred? i don’t see a groundswell of support for massive turnout at civic center next week.
Posted on February 25th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Hi MPetrelis,
I know of student groups that have gotten funding for vans from their universities, and am getting several emails a day from folks coming from as far away as Boston, Cincinatti and Virginia- and I know not everyone would reach out and tell me. I think there’s just lots of folks that are arranging their own car pools and not relying on eride share.
This is mostly being organized by college students, who have their own ways of spreading the word to get folks to come from all over CA. Since we knew many people throughout the country would want to be involved we’re letting folks know what’s up.
Cleve Jones is definitely confirmed to be there for the vigil on the 4th and the morning of the 5th.
Hope to see you!
Willow
Posted on February 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Hey MPetrilis,
I just met with one of my students organizing the delegation here at UC Santa Barbara, and we have fifty students signed up for the shuttle vans (maxing out the capacity) and they are trying to get funding for more shuttles here at the college. There are more students planning on going up in their cars. A lot of people are finding rides through the facebook event group and through word of mouth and bypassing the eride share thing, but they still set it up as another alternative. (And this is just the people coming from our one campus). A lot of them will be staying with the Berkeley contingency which being just across the bay will hopefully be much larger…
Thanks for your concern though and know that we have been really working at this for over two weeks now and we’ve got another week left! It’s really one day to make a stand to the CA Supreme Court before they retreat and figure out their decision.
Hope to see you!
Jeff
Posted on February 26th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
There’s going to be a candlelight vigil — wouldn’t it be great if it was nationwide?
http://www.365gay.com/news/vigils-set-for-eve-of-prop-8-arguments/
Posted on February 26th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
hi willow and amy,
i’ve written a longer post about the march 5 action in SF and it’s posted at my blog. check it out:
http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2009/02/disjointed-impact-100k-in-sf-for-prop-8.html
it should start a lively discussion in SF about how many people will show up in a few days.
Posted on February 28th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I appreciate your comments regarding reaching out to leaders in the community and organizing this event better, but I do wish that all information was verified before posting. The 100K march to SF was not planned by JTI and is not a JTI event. The organizers did, however, reach out to JTI and many many other organizations asking for help to get out the word. We at JTI decided that this was something worth helping to get the word out on, especially after our member base responded with a resounding: “We’ll be at this event!”
I heard about this push to get 100K people to SF about 3 weeks to a month ago, so I know that these students have been planning it for more than a week. My thoughts are, if someone wants to make a push for something like this and their intentions are genuine, then why not help get the word out? When Willow and I called for national rallies on November 15th, it would not have been even close to the success it was if it weren’t for people like you who have weathered these storms before and were willing to help spread the word and give us a ton of well needed advice. We are still constantly seeking advice, and appreciate it when it comes. I am sure that those planning this event feel the same way.
Those planning this event have sought out advice and reached out to many groups, but they have not gotten the same response that Willow and I did when JTI began, and that is unfortunate. Still, it’s understandable. The November 15th rallies awoke a great amount of young activists, calling for many events and I know that it’s frustrating for many of the seasoned orgs who have their own agendas that need to be met.
Many orgs have told me that they are trying to help get the word out on this event, so it surprises me that you were not informed of it. Still, I completely understand what you mean about credibility and what the credibility of the community looks like as a whole when 100K people are called for and only 1000 attend. All the orgs that I have spoken to who are trying to get the word out about this event, have not mentioned to me concern about a lack of attendance. Since I am not in San Fran, and am not planning this event, I have trusted the many people who have told me that there will be massive numbers there. It wasn’t until someone really jazzed me up about these numbers being a reality that I decided to post about it. Your comment on JTI saying that noone had heard about it really surprised me because I keep hearing buzz about it. I sent your comment to some of those orgs and was told that the word was getting out.
So now that we’ve gotten that all cleared up… thanks for bringing attention to this. You just did what we’re trying to do: got the word out about what these students are planning. They have contacted many members of the press but have not gotten any response. This was just brought to my attention today, and I will lend my support in getting the word out to the press… your blog post is a great first start.
You can call me a size queen and maybe I am. I believe that many things make an impact and numbers are one of them. I also believe in setting reachable goals for an event that is run by JTI, which we have done for all of our events. When we started out, we had no clue that we’d reach 1 million people, but we did (our goal was 50 cities, and people like you are the reason it got to over 300). After that, we wanted to take advantage of those large numbers which we did by placing two other JTI events around the goal of 1 Million (focusing not on turning out 1 million people, but reaching 1 million people). We hit those goals, so if I’m a size queen of the male species, I’ll never need a corvette to make up for anything tiny
I hope that we can continue to discuss this event and future ones and that all of the young activists (myself included) get the chance to learn from people like you.
Posted on February 28th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I’m looking for a way to get to SFCA for 3/5 and have a budget of about $175 but at this time I don’t have a way to get there. Any suggestions?
Kurt M.
km1551@txstate.edu
Posted on March 2nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Just wanted to let you guys know that I believe that MEUSA has met their goal today! The lenders of the jumbotron cut the price in half for them [$18,000] – Look at the page right now – as I viewed it, I see a grand sum of $18,003!
Posted on March 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 pm
I wish I had money to physically help! Damn the economy.
I will wear white all day to show my support. If they don’t overturn Proposition 8, it will be proof that some Americans are still ignorant, unintelligent, and irrational. I simply don’t understand the opposing arguement. Good luck to everyone!
Posted on March 4th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Where was everyone? I called in sick and drove 45 miles to S.F. to stand in solidarity with the LGBT community this morning. What a tragic and disappointing LGBT turn-out, but there was no shortage of Prop 8 supporters. Unbelievable.
Posted on March 5th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
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