12/02 Grants Workshop

The Arts Council for Long Beach is offering a free grants workshop. each year the Arts Council hands out grants totaling $300000 to individual artists, art programs and art groups. I attended a workshop last night (Feb. 11) at Houghton Park. We learned about which grants were available for different programs, how to write grants and how the process proceeds once you put in your application. For anyone working as an artist, or in art programs, this would be an incredibly useful workshop to attend.

There are three more dates available. All workshops are free, but reservations are required.

Wednesday, February 13
5:30 - 7:00
Japanese Cultural Center, Auditorium
1766 Seabright Ave., Long Beach 90813

Thursday February 28
7:30- 9:00
Homeland Cultural Center
1321 E. Anaheim St., LB 90813

Tuesday, March 25
6:30 - 8:00
Neighborhood Resource Center
425 Atlantic Ave. LB, 90802

12/02 V-Day at Morri's of Naples

As part of a year long celebration of 70 years of dedication to Long Beach “Morry’s of Naples” has teamed up with “Local Endeavor” to host a dynamic and entertaining evening to raise funds and awareness of the ten year anniversary of “V-Day,” Eve Ensler’s marvelous non-profit movement to stop violence against women and girls on Sunday March 9th at 4:30 p.m.

This official “V-Day” event will include a “mini” performance of “The Vagina Monologues” with readings by a talented cast of local ladies including poet Donna Hilbert, Myriam Joseph, Kerri Zane, Leanna Rodgers, Becky Skoglund and Kim Porche. The event will also include a delicious appetizer and dessert buffet, silent auction and a showing of the documentary film, “Until the Violence Stops” in the intimate and charming “The Backroom” of Morry’s at 5764 E. 2nd Street, on Naples Island in Long Beach. Minimum donation for tickets is $45.00.

Proceeds from this event will benefit both “WomenShelter of Long Beach,” which has been serving Long Beach with the mission of ending the cycle of domestic violence through education, intervention and prevention for over thirty years, as well the “V-Day” organization itself.

For further information on this event please go to Local Endeavor or email Melissa Balmer at balmer64@yahoo.com. For questions in regards to domestic violence in Long Beach please contact TuLynn Smylie, the executive director of WomenShelter of Long Beach, at 562-437-7233 or email her at tsmylie@womenshelterlb.org.
Further information on V-Day

V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play “The Vagina Monologues.”

Since 1998, thousands of V-Day events have taken place all over the world, Shenzhen, China to Stockholm, Sweden from Canberra, Australia to Lagos, Nigeria. In 2007 alone, more than 3000 V-Day events took place around the world and in all 50 of the United States. 2008 will be V-Day’s biggest year to date as we come together to celebrate the last ten years of ending violence against women and girls and go forward into the next ten years.

To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $50 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 5000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq.