The good news is SR has raised $15,000 since Nov. 1. The bad news is the organization needs to raise another $10,000 to stay afloat in the first quarter of 2010. Your support matters more now than ever. Give now!
Street Roots has talked about the community support that builds relationships in the community through the vendor program and the connections made from publishing of the Rose City Resource in the last month.
Your community support also helps bring the Portland region a critical voice through grassroots media. While the recession and economy have poked us in the ribs - the newspaper itself has had a breakthrough year.
During the past 12 months, the newspaper has reported on a range of important issues effecting Portlanders and the region, including stories that outlined life on the streets for sex workers and the dynamics they face ranging from everyday violence to striving for a sense of dignity in a world that holds little logic.
On the homeless front SR covered important topics ranging from the growing number of families living in hotels, the criminalization of people on the streets. We've presented in-depth coverage of the sit-lie saga, and looked at individuals' quality of life and the reality that many people die long before their time after living on the streets. We also reported on the heroin epidemic that has exploded in Portland over the past year.
SR added two columnists from the streets, including vendor and board member Leo Rhodes and the hard-hitting and inspiring Julie McCurdy. We ran scores of poems and street art and welcomed a new column from the Mental Health Association of Portland.
On the affordable housing front the newspaper has continued to hit the pavement and bring to light complex issues such as the lack of housing for people in need, and Section 8 shortfalls. We gave you in-depth reporting on 300 families who where in danger of being kicked to the curb in NW Oregon (which our reporting help save!), and is currently digging deep on the need for a housing levy at a local level. We also ran important Q & A's with minority Community Development Corporation leaders in the community.
As Ronault "Polo" Catalani expressed to us in his interview, SR is not covering immigrant and refugee communities in the newspaper, it's covering new Portlanders. This year, SR focused on many inspiring and troubling stories from the new Portland community, including stories from the Cambodian, African, and Latino communities.
Lastly, we ran front page interviews that helped vendors sell the newspaper and offered us important and insightful perspectives about the world we live from Ted Wheeler, Rick Steves, Michael Franti, Henry Rollins and Bob Dylan.
In 2010, SR promises to bring you more of the same. We will be highlighting in the coming months more stories from new Portlanders and the realities of veterans living on our streets and dealing with PTSD, while continuing to drive home complex issues ranging from the affordable housing front to life on the streets in the modern day Depression.
None of this is possible without your support. Please help make SR strong and be in a position to deliver readers with strong journalism and voices from the community, including those from the streets.
Some expect less from a street paper. With your help, we will continue to deliver more.
Thank you for the consideration and giving during these difficult times.
Give at the Willamette Week Give!Guide - you'll get some great incentives in return!
Sincerely,
Israel Bayer, Street Roots
Check out the photos from the Street Roots photography show!
Look at me. I'm not invisible.
Photo by Leah Nash