Archive for the ‘Call to Action’ Category

A community is coming together to help a Dallas singer and actress who lost all of her belongings in a fire last week.

Liz Mikel is known around Dallas jazz clubs and for performing with the Dallas Theater Company. She also had a role in the TV series “Friday Night Lights.”

Last week a fire tore through Mikel’s North Dallas apartment complex. “We ran out of the door, with the sparks flying, fire overhead and the smell of melting plastic.” she said.

Mikel, her daughter, and several others were displaced. “I saw the roof cave in, over my closet, adjacent to the bedroom, where I had been laying.”

Now, friends and complete strangers are reaching out. “Those day to day things were just taken from us so swiftly,” she said.

Sunday night there was a benefit at Tucker’s Blues in Deep Ellum.

“To have the love and support of my friends and community, it means the world to us. But, it shows the nature of people and how huge our hearts are as a community in Dallas,” she said.

Mikel says she has been overwhelmed by all of the support, and plans to give back when she gets back on her feet.

“I plan to continue this and help other people in need,” she said.

Mikel will play a role in the Dallas Theater Center’s upcoming pop musical Give it Up. The proceeds from the performance on Friday, Jan 15 will benefit Mikel. It is a “pay what you can” performance.

Next Wednesday, 11 November 09, is Veteran’s Day.

Each year the Patriot Guard Riders place 300 flags along the Avenue of Flags at DFW National Cemetery.

If you are willing to come out this Saturday (7 Nov 09) at 8a to help place the flags AND/OR next Saturday (14 Nov 09) at 8a to help fold the flags, your help would be most appreciated.

If you would like to be part of this volunteer activity, you are welcome to meet up with the Downtown Dallas Bikers at Cafe Brazil in Deep Ellum (2815 Elm Street, Dallas, 75226). They will have KSU at 7:30a and ride out to the cemetery in Grand Prairie. The group does ask that you please RSVP so they know how many to expect for the ride. You can RSVP at this link.

Patriot Guard Riders is an all volunteer nationwide motorcycle group that shows respect by presenting the American flag at the funerals of fallen military heroes.

For more information, please visit:

* Patriot Guard Riders
* Downtown Dallas Bikers
* DFW National Cemetery
* Cafe Brazil

Patriot Guard Riders to place 300 flags in honor of Veteran's Day at DFW National Cemetery.

Begins: Tuesday, September 1 2009 at 7:00 PM
Ends: Tuesday, September 1 2009 at 9:00 PM
Location: Whole Foods Market
Address: 11700 Preston Rd., Dallas, Texas 75230

As you may know, Texas-based Whole Foods Market is being subjected to a nationwide BOYCOTT by SEIU and other left-wing groups after its CEO John Mackey had the courage to speak up against the Administration’s health care ‘reform’ plan.

They’re trying to kill Whole Foods’ sales and oust John Mackey as CEO.

There’s a group who is not prepared to leave fellow Texans to stand alone in their battle with SEIU, and you are being invited to join.

A COUNTER-EFFORT to let SEIU and other’s from the opposition know that Dallasites STAND IN SOLIDARITY with John Mackey and Whole Foods Market.

The NATIONWIDE kick-off for the BUYcott will begin on September 1. The St. Louis Tea Party will kick off the show at 6:00 pm. We’ll be following their lead here in Dallas at 7:00 pm.

This call is going out across the nation and NATIONAL COVERAGE is expected for this event.

You are welcome to JOIN in standing up AGAINST the SEIU and FOR LIBERTY!

If you will be attending this event please RSVP by visting this link ATTENDING: http://dallasteaparty.mojo4m.com/events/event_rsvp.php?a=1&e=303&u=12659

The new school year is approaching quickly and many teachers are in desperate need of supplies.

To find out which teachers / schools in Dallas are asking for help, please visit DonorsChoose.org now!

A North Texas animal shelter is faced with an agonizing decision: either euthanize its animals or let them starve to death.

Directors at the Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake in Tool say they’re in danger of running out of food to feed the facility’s 140 animals.

“We cannot afford the $1,000 or so a month it takes to feed them,” said Tamara Rhodes, shelter president. “So our only solution at this point of time is to reduce the population and lessen the strain that feeding additional animals would cause us.”

The animals eat 150 pounds of food a day, much of which used to be donated, but now supplies are dangerously low, workers say.

The shelter only has enough food to last another week or two.

“We don’t want to see those animals destroyed simply because of funding,” Rhodes said.

The shelter is like many across the country: overwhelmed with abandoned pets and seeing their donations dry up.

Late Saturday afternoon, disappointed volunteers returned to the shelter from an adoption fair with a van full of animals they hoped would not be returning.

“Most of them did not get adopted,” said shelter board member Kathy Jordan.

Each week, dozens of new animals arrive at the shelter.

Even though volunteers have been turning away the public, some people drop off the animals at the gate or toss them over the fence, workers say.

“We’ve had a lot of bad experiences of people dumping their dogs and it’s because of the economy,” said shelter worker Jeremiah Borchart. “People can’t take care of their dogs.”

This rural shelter, 60 miles south of Dallas, is one of the few for miles around.

Animal control agencies from nearly a dozen towns bring their stray animals to the shelter.

Workers said they actually have the space for many of the pets, but simply cannot afford to care for them.

“It’s very serious,” Rhodes said. “This is pretty much the first time we’ve ever had this problem.”

Workers have been euthanizing nearly 20 percent of the shelter’s animals and worry more might have to be put down.

Volunteers have been successful in getting rescue groups to save some of the dogs, but said it’s a challenge finding a home for unwanted pets with so many agencies suffering.

“It’s horrible,” Rhodes said, especially since many of the animals are adoptable former pets. “You can’t imagine how heart wrenching a decision it is to take an animal and put it to sleep.”

If you want to help, you can call the shelter on 903-432-3422 or go by the shelter located at 10200 County Road 2403 Tool, TX 75143.

You can also go to the The Humane Society of Cedar Creek Lake’s website to donate.

Caution readers: The editor is about to get onto the soapbox for a commentary.

I freely admit that I am one of those individuals that learns something new every day. I also admit that I don’t have advanced college degrees on finance. But what I do know is that the US of A is coming up with a whole lot of money to bail out banks and these banks have people in upper management that supposedly attended some of the loftiest universities this country has to offer.

We’ve got the government bailing out people who bought more home than they could afford. And I’m wondering if these “homeowners” ever gave consideration to what was going to happen when their mortgage payments increased to the point they couldn’t afford them.

The government bailing out everyone and their dog does not make for a healthy, capitalistic society. Small business owners are what powers the US economy — not government bailouts.

And all this bailout money is coming from where exactly? Sure, the printing presses can be run 24/7 but if there’s no gold sitting in Ft. Knox to back it up it’s all rather pointless. It’s all rather like you and I just running out and writing checks wildly for anything we want regardless of price — as long as we have blank checks, we’ll keep buying because, after all, Uncle Sam will bail us out.

Just today I was listening to some people I know that are professional event organizers. It seems that Wells Fargo “sponsored” an upcoming event to the tune of $20,000. Wells Fargo called in today to say, “Keep the money, just get our name and logo off of everything ASAP because we took bailout money.”

Admittedly, I have mixed emotions about that. First, what were those wankers thinking to be sponsoring a community event to the tune of $20k and if it’s happening here, how many other cities is it happening in? Second, I’m glad it happened here because that’s an influx of $20k to a local organization that benefits those of us here.

But if you’ll bare with me on my rambling vent, there’s one particular issue that fired me up over all of this and that would be the photos of a large truck, woefully under filled with drinks and bed linens that are headed to our returning troops.

Yes, boys and girls, we have US Armed Forces returning from active duty in an arid wasteland to find themselves without something as simple as BED SHEETS due to “budget constraints”.

I cannot be the only one saying “WTF!” to this image. Our troops, defending our freedoms, don’t have something as basic as sheets yet the government is bending over backwards to appease fat cats that shouldn’t be allowed to balance their own checkbook let alone run a multi-billion $ corporation.

In closing, if you’d like to assist our troops, please visit Operation Once In A Lifetime’s website to see how you can donate SHEETS to our troops.

Bed linens to our returning troops

Jessica Rector applied for the “dream job” the Australian government has advertised which is living 6 months on an island along the Great Barrier Reef and earning $100,000 for her hard work.

Let’s do what we can to help the Australian government choose Jessica by voting high stars for her demo clip by watching & voting at this link.