Announcements

 

 
By Case Keltner
Editorial Intern

If you walk past the Church of the Epiphany on a Sunday morning, the aroma of a warm, home-cooked meal will fill your nostrils. This is the fragrance of the Welcome Table, a program that for 15 years has welcomed Washington’s homeless people to Sunday breakfast.

Beginning at 6:00 a.m., individuals begin to sign up to enjoy bacon and eggs, grits, fruit cocktails, juice and coffee. An outreach counselor is on hand with support, and Bible studies and a creative Gospel art program are also offered. Perhaps most importantly, the guests at the Welcome Table discover a familiar yet diverse community that embraces new visitors with open arms. A spokeswoman for the Welcome Table summarized the program’s simplicity and approach saying it is “an a la carte program; you take what you want.”

With costs of operation surpassing $500 per week, the Welcome Table gratefully accepts any donations to help the program.

Please join Street Sense at Busboys and Poets this Sunday, January 23^rd for an evening of inspirational poetry about poverty and homelessness.

One Common Unity presents the 2011 Common Folk: Voices of a Movement Open Mic Series.

The series provides a platform for those using their art, music and words to inspire a culture of peace and justice.

This first Open Mic of 2011 will feature guests including poets from Street Sense.

Come and share your poetry and words as we artistically address the January theme of Poverty & Homelessness in our nation today.

The event is being hosted by HAWAH and co-produced by Zaccai Free and Mikuak Rai.

Sunday, January 23rd, 7pm – 9pm

$5 Suggested Donation at the door

Busboys and Poets @ 5th & K (1025 5th Street NW, DC)

By Eric Falquero, Former Graphic Design Intern

I began working as a graphic design intern at Street Sense in June 2010. I worked mostly on marketing materials, especially rebranding the organization. Roughly two weeks before leaving Street Sense to finish the last semester of my degree, we began working on a new layout for this publication.

I say “we” because this layout was by no means a one-man effort. The former executive director, Abby Strunk, showed me many examples of other street newspapers and gave me a lot of direction, especially with our new logo. She also helped organize a focus group for the logo and layout efforts.

This group consisted of volunteers Mandy Toomely, Tracey Ching and Mike Plunkett. These volunteers’ opinions, suggestions and ideas were vital for the final outcome  that you see before you.

Mike Plunkett, a news/features designer at The Washington Post, was especially instrumental in finalizing the design and ensuring all the elements were addressed.

He continued to look over the design and make suggestions and his own changes. I also worked with editors Mary Otto and Lisa Gillespie to get their insights.

The entire organization was very patient as I continued to work during the school year.

This layout offers a cleaner, more organized format with larger type.  The hope is that the larger and less-cluttered design will be more accessible, even to those with vision troubles. It will also be easier to navigate by all readers.

This has been accomplished mainly by building in more space between page elements and through the use of sans-serif type faces, which allows more space around the characters.

A table of contents was added and the community service index was redesigned to provide more ease of access. Lastly, space for facts related to stories, information on how to get involved and plugs for online-only stories have been added to give readers options of how to become further connected with the mission and vision of Street Sense.

This was an amazing opportunity for me and I hope my work will greatly improve the delivery of the paper’s content, as well as attract more customers for the vendors. I cannot thank everyone involved in the process enough for their help and support.

Eric Falquero will begin working as a graphic designer in the D.C. metro area in January 2011. He can be contacted at eric@artguero.com.

Join Fannie Mae on the National Mall and use your feet to lend a hand. Walk for the more than 12,000 people in the Washington, DC metropolitan area who are homeless. Register online at helpthehomelessdc.org or text “HOME” to 69866.

Fannie Mae has raised more than $80 million providing resources to hundreds of thousands of men, women, children, and families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless through the Help the Homeless Program.

The Black Cat, located at 1811 14th St. NW, will host a benefit concert for Street Sense this Saturday, August 21st at 9pm on the mainstage. For a $12 cover charge, come see live performances from Asheru, Tamika Jones and Flex Matthews. We hope to see you there!

The Beacon Bar & Grill will be hosting a fundraising event this Thursday, August 19th. Enjoy happy hour specials like $4 appetizers and martinis, $2 sliders and more – and all for a great cause! All proceeds will go directly to Street Sense, so come out to have fun and show your support!

Street Sense will be hosting its 5th annual Silent Auction on Thursday, October 14th, 2010. Preparations are already underway to make this the best Street Sense auction ever!

We are delighted to welcome Amy Vokes, our new Community Development & Program Manager who joined us at Street Sense this Monday. It’s full steam ahead for Street Sense with Amy on board!