Many Berkeley grad students volunteer their time and talents to make their community a better place. If you volunteer your time to an organization or know of a local, worthy cause, please add it below.
Bay Area Project ASTRO matches astronomers with Bay Area teachers in yearlong partnerships. This is a great way to build a relationship with a class or community group.
SSL Center for Science Education has lots of educational programs available.
Expanding Your Horizons is a nationwide program that conducts one-day conferences to educate middle-school girls about careers in science and technology. Mills College runs a local conference each March.
Upward Bound helps local low-income high school seniors prepare for college careers in math and science.
The Multicultural Engineering Program seeks to increase participation and retention of women and underrepresented minorities in the sciences and engineering. Berkeley grad student volunteers have helped with their “boot camp”, an intense summer session where incoming freshmen get early exposure to their first year coursework.
Patten University's Prison University Project at San Quentin helps inmates earn degrees. Volunteers teach and tutor math and physics. (Donations and volunteers are needed because, by law, federal funds may not be used for education of the incarcerated).
Berkeley Reads is a free program at the Berkeley Public Library where volunteers work for 1-2 hours a week one-on-one with an adult literacy student.
There are several community theaters in the area:
An easy way to help your community is to donate blood. It costs you nothing but a hour or two and a pint of blood, and you get to genuinely help your community (and get some free snacks). It's easiest not to wait for a blood drive (they're slow, anyway) – just sign up online.
Eligibility for blood donation is spelled out here.
If you are one of the lucky 8‰ of the population to have type O-negative blood, it's especially important for you to donate because you're a universal donor. Your blood can be used in local ERs for emergency, life-saving procedures.
If you have another type, your blood is still almost always desperately needed. A-positive and O-positive are the most common blood types (over 2/3 of the population), and therefore also the types in the highest demand. If you have another blood type, you're still not off the hook: not only is your whole blood is still needed, but you may be eligible for apheresis, a process which allows you to donate type-independent blood products, such as platelets, much more frequently than you can donate whole blood.
The mobile blood drives that come through campus are often excruciatingly slow and inconvenient
For most students, the most convenient location is the Oakland Blood Center on Claremont at College Ave. Call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE or go to http://beadonor.com to schedule an appointment. The center is open for donations:
Monday: 8:30 am - 4:00 pm
Tuesday: 12:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Wednesday: 11:00 am - 6:30 pm
Thursday: 11:00 am - 6:30 pm
Friday: 7:30 am - 3:00 pm
Saturday: 7:30 am - 3:00 pm
You can donate whole blood every 8 weeks and blood products every 48 hours (up to 24 times per year).
Your can volunteer at the blood center as well: http://beadonor.com/index.cfm?Group=page&Function=beadonorvolunteer
This section is for links to political organizations that need local volunteers or support. This is not a place for proselytizing, but a resource for people to find like-minded organizations to join.
Founded in 1920, the League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, nonprofit political organization that encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government and influences public policy through education and advocacy. The LWV never supports or opposes candidates or political parties. The League works at the local, regional, state, and national levels, paralleling the levels of government.
The organization's name derives from the women's suffrage movement. Today's members are women and men, and may join through any level of the League.
Find your local chapter or look into the issues handled at the state and national levels.
Started in Spring of 2007, the Phoenix Coalition is a Berkeley student-led coalition that seeks to transform the University from an elitist, corporate, militaristic, autocratic institution into a responsible, just, diverse equitable, democratically-governed body that educates and works for the common welfare.
The Phoenix Coalition is a new radical student movement which uses nonviolent direct action to assist the evolution of the University structurally and ethically (i.e. “tree sit” at the Oak grove - 273 days as by August 23th,2007-; hunger strike for nukes abolition and civil disobedience at UC Regents meeting; public hearings of the British Petroleum-UC deal).
The members of the coalition believe that University's deeds not only affect the students, the faculty and the staff, but also affect the community, the state, the country and the World. Because of this reason, the coalition is evolving from student-led into community-led.
These are some of the groups that are involved in the Phoenix Coalition: Save the Oaks Stop British Petroleum-Berkeley Association of South Asian Political Activists (ASAPA) Berkeley Copwatch Berkeley National Organization for Women (BNOW) Berkeley Stop the War Coalition (BSTW) Fiat Pax Students Organizing for Justice in the Americas (SOJA) Student Worker Action Group (SWAG) The Local
As Mario Savio (one of the Berkeley student activists that started the Free Speech Movement) said: “There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
The choice is ours. The time is now. We are the ones we've been waiting for. If you want to be a rebel, be kind. Human-kind, be both.
Founded in 1949 by Lewis Hill, a pacifist, poet, and journalist, KPFA was the first community supported radio station in the USA. KPFA broadcasts on 94.1 FM and KPFB 89.3 FM, Berkeley, and KFCF 88.1 FM, Fresno, California. The signal reaches one third of the state, utilizing 59,000 watts. Much of the programming is local, original and eclectic, with a well produced mix of news and in depth public affairs, an ongoing drama, literature and performance series, interviews, and reviews. The music ranges from folk to hip hop, Bach to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The station travels the region to broadcast live music, demonstrations, and cultural events. The majority of the staff are unpaid community volunteers donating their time and energy to bring you our programming.
KPFA's mission: To promote cultural diversity and pluralistic community expression. To contribute to a lasting understanding between individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colors. To promote freedom of the press and serve as a forum for various viewpoints. To maintain an independent funding base.
Food Not Bombs is one of the fastest growing revolutionary movements and is gaining momentum throughout the World. There are hundreds of autonomous chapters sharing free vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty. Food Not Bombs is not a charity. This energetic grassroots movement is active throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. Food Not Bombs is organizing for peace and an end to the occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. For over 25 years the movement has worked to end hunger and has supported actions to stop the globalization of the economy, restrictions to the movements of people, end exploitation and the destruction of the earth.
The first group was formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1980 by anti-nuclear activists. Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to nonviolent social change. Food Not Bombs has no formal leaders and strives to include everyone in its decision making process. Each group recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and makes fresh hot vegetarian meals that are served in outside in public spaces to anyone without restriction. Each independent group also serves free vegetarian meals at protests and other events. The San Francisco chapter has been arrested over 1,000 times in government's effort to silence its protest against the city's anti- homeless policies. Amnesty International states it will adopt those Food Not Bombs volunteers that are convicted as “Prisoners of Conscience” and will work for their unconditional release. Even though we are dedicated to nonviolence Food Not Bombs activists in the United States have been under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, Pentagon and other intelligence agencies. A number of Food Not Bombs volunteers have been arrested on terrorism charges but there has never been a conviction.
Food Not Bombs is often the first to provide food and supplies to the survivors of natural disasters and terrorist attacks. During the first three days after the 1989 Earthquake, Food Not Bombs was the only organization in San Francisco providing hot meals to the survivors and the Long Beach chapter provided food after the North Ridge Earthquake. Food Not Bombs was also the first to provide hot meals to the rescue workers responding to September 11th World Trade Center attacks. Food Not Bombs volunteers were among the first to provide food and help to the survivors of the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Our volunteers organized a national collection program and delivered bus and truckloads of food and supplies to the gulf region. We have been one of the only organizations sharing daily meals in New Orleans since Katrina. You can rely on Food Not Bombs in a disaster and we are ready to help in the future.
Food Not Bombs works in coalition with groups like Earth First!, The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, Anarchist Black Cross, the IWW, Homes Not Jails, Anti Racist Action, In Defense of Animals, the Free Radio Movement and other organizations on the cutting edge of positive social change and resistance to the new global austerity program. One collective publishes a movement wide newsletter called A Food Not Bombs Menu. Another hosts FNB News where you can learn more about the Food Not Bombs community. Food Not Bombs Publishing in Takoma Park, Maryland publishes books like On Conflict and Consensus which has been an important guide for group democracy. We hope you will join us in taking direct action towards creating a world free from domination, coercion and violence.
Food is a right, not a privilege.
The Not In Our Name Project was initiated at a meeting in New York City, on March 23, 2002. The meeting was called for by a letter that proposed ways to strengthen and expand resistance to our government's course in the wake of September 11, 2001. The meeting adopted the proposal - and Not in Our Name was born.
The Not In Our Name Pledge of Resistance was created collectively by artists and activists (ARTivists) in April 2002 as a means of inspiring protest and resistance. The Pledge was not intended to be signed, rather, it is a tool to be used by individuals, organizations and communities to inspire and strengthen individual and group resistance. The Pledge of Resistance was subsequently written, translated to 24 languages and distributed at anti-war actions on April 20, 2002–along with a call to take up the Not in Our Name project.
The Not in Our Name National Steering Committee is the final decision making body of the national project. However, local chapters maintain great autonomy of action. Steering Committee members are selected or recruited by the local chapters, or are nominated and affirmed by the current steering committee. The Steering Committee is open to Not in Our Name activists and organizers of all backgrounds, races, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, political affiliations and immigration status, from major urban areas to small communities across the country.