Can’t get enough CHANGE? Good! The election was just the beginning. This campaign was not just about bringing change to Washington, but also about bringing it to Brooklyn. It is up to us to make the change real.

Join us on Sunday, February 8th when more than 65+ local non-profit organizations, charities and advocacy groups will come together for the first-ever “Continue the Change Service Fair.” Organized by Brooklyn for Barack and the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, the event will be part of an ongoing effort to harness the incredible energy sparked by the Obama campaign. Attendees will have an opportunity to speak with representatives of organizations that are offering concrete volunteer opportunities like writing, teaching, tutoring, filmmaking, phonebanking, mentoring, word processing, stocking food pantries, sewing clothes for survivors of domestic violence, working w/ animals, canvassing, gardening and farming, ushering at performances, photography, and job search mentoring.

There will also be a Make and Take arts table for kids and roundtable discussions on the following subjects: Local Environmental Activism, Using Technology to Monitor and Influence the Legislative Process, Health Care, Voting Rights, and Food Justice.

What: Continue the Change Volunteer Fair
When: Sunday, Feb. 8, 2 to 6 p.m.
Where: Union Temple, 17 Eastern Parkway (at Grand Army Plaza) 3rd Floor ballroom
Cost: Free, but a box of dried pasta for Union Temple’s food drive would be appreciated

To RSVP, please email continuethechange@gmail.com or call 718-757-8572

This is a non-partisan event.

This Martin Luther King Jr. Day (and the two days prior), organizations and volunteers are joining President-elect Obama in making a call to service to every American to reignite the nation’s spirit of volunteerism and community service. This new effort, Renew America Together, is not simply about stepping up to serve for a single day. It is also about making a continued commitment to serve our communities throughout the year. Together, with our next President, we are asking that you and your family, friends and neighbors sign-up right now to volunteer during the weekend of January 17 – 19, 2009. You can join already-existing projects or create your own at usaservice.org

For a complete list of Brooklyn events scheduled to date, please click here

Here are a few events to give you an idea of what’s going on:

January 17th – Fort Greene
Cleaning an Early Head Start Nursery School

January 17th – Downtown Brooklyn
Sanding Blocks for a Children’s Center

January 17th – Bed Stuy
Clean and Organize Food Pantry

January 18th – Starrett City
Food Stamp Outreach

January 19th – Park Slope
Data Entry for Human Rights Organizations

January 19th – Crown Heights
Neighborhood Cleanup

January 19th – Fort Greene
Coat Drive/Blanket Drive/Info Drive

January 19th – Food Drives

Cobble Hill

Williamsburg

Atlantic Center

Park Slope

In an effort to encourage (read: bribe) you to help us get out the vote now through election night, we’ve teamed up with a bunch of local Brooklyn bars to spread the wealth with discount booze. We’re pleased to report that each of the bars listed below will be hosting watch parties on election night and have agreed to offer drink specials to volunteers (2-for-1 drinks at the very least, but some places are being even more generous, so ask the bartender what’s on tap for Obama).

Just print out your volunteer card and bring it to any of the following great Brooklyn bars:

We are now in the final hours before the election. Whether you’ve volunteered hundreds of times for the campaign or you just joined our email list, we need your help now.

The Obama campaign is trying something that has never been done before. The campaign will have all of its volunteers in battleground states going door-to-door to talk to voters in person. They will not make any reminder phone calls. Instead, the campaign has outsourced the calling program to blue states like New York. Every single reminder phone call to an Obama supporter in a battleground state like Pennsylvania or Ohio will come from a blue state like New York.

Repeat: Every single reminder phone call to an Obama supporter in a battleground state will come from a state like New York.

That means that we’re counting on you, Brooklyn, in a way that no Presidential campaign up to this point has. Those reminder phone calls are an essential part of the get out the vote operation in battleground states. We MUST make these phone calls, and every phone call that goes unmade hurts our chance to win this election. In these last days, we need to make literally millions of phone calls from New York.

Brooklyn alone is responsible for making close to a million calls.

We need 10,000 volunteers from Brooklyn to meet our call goal. So, we’ll need every single person on this email list to make a couple of hours sometime between now and 8 PM on Tuesday evening, get three or four friends together and come down to one of the following locations with your cell phones and chargers to make some reminder calls. The calls are very simple. You won’t be calling any undecided voters. You’ll just be calling supporters and reminding them to vote in the election on Tuesday.

And don’t forget: all phone bank volunteers get 2-for-1 drinks on election night!!!

(We also need people who can help flyer. So, if you can’t make calls but you still want to help, please email amandat [at] brooklynforbarack.org and we’ll put you on a street team.)

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BRING YOUR CELL PHONE AND CHARGER

LOCATIONS AND START TIMES:

South Slope:
GRAND PROSPECT HALL
263 Prospect Ave (btwn 5th Ave/6th Ave)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 10am I TUE 9am

Clinton Hill:
BROOKLYN MASONIC TEMPLE
317 Clermont Ave (at Lafayette Ave)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 10am I TUE 9am

Fort Greene:
BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC – BAM CAFÉ
30 Lafayette Ave (at Ashland Pl)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 10am I TUE 1pm

Brownsville:
POLY LOUNGE CAFÉ
530 Sutter Ave (btwn Hinsdale St/Williams)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 4pm I TUE 9am

Park Slope:
BROOKLYN LYCEUM
227 Fourth Ave (at Union St)
MON 10am I TUE 9am

Bed-Stuy
THE LAB
1424 Fulton St (at Brooklyn Ave)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 10am I TUE 9am

Bushwick:
3RD WARD
195 Morgan Ave (at Stagg St)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 10am I TUE 9am

Canarsie:
SALLY’S RESTAURANT
1574 Ralph Ave (btwn Foster Ave/Farragut)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 10am I TUE 9am

Flatbush:
CAFÉ OMAR
1744 Nostrand Ave (at Avenue D)
SAT 10am I SUN 12pm I MON 10am I TUE 9am