A new flag's waving in town by Nicole Le Clerc
"Sure, revolution," said Rob Galleon, co-founder of the recently formed
ReAct Community Center at 1415 Farnam St. "We'd like to see a more
empowered community. Omaha is very plutocratic. There's a big division
between the rich and the poor, and that is something that we would like to
see remedied."
A solid black flag waves outside ReAct. Beneath it are cardboard boxes.
Some are filled with food such as bagels and apples, and some with
clothing. Handwritten signs read, "Eat me," like the cake in Alice in
Wonderland, or "Free." Posters, which include such phrases as "Stop War
Live Free" or an image of a woman breastfeeding a baby with the words
"resistance is fertile," hang above the boxes on the storefront windows.
Young ReActors sometimes stand outside smoking as two more signs are posted
on the door: "No Smoking No Drinking" and "No Sleeping."
Startup At 23 the oldest group member, Galleon, along with Tony Young,
Jessica Medura and Ryan Nash, established ReAct six months ago with $1,500.
Combining "Resource" and "Activity," the center's name was created and the
non-profit community center/"infoshop" doors opened. Infoshops began in the
1990s in Europe as an effort to offer the public additional information not
provided through mainstream media outlets.
Inside, a desk, some bookcases, second-hand couches and furniture are
arranged in the front of the space. Words such as "capitalist," "Iraq" and
"corporate" are often heard, following a brief "hello" from whomever
happens to be near the door. Pamphlets, mission statement, fliers for
future events and a notebook to sign up for their e-mail list are set
neatly on the desk. Bookcases contain books and vitamins. A little farther
back, a small kitchen with some herbs hanging to dry half-partition this
space from the larger space, which is mostly empty except for more
furniture and a few bikes. Although a clean space, a vague odor of
vegetables or perhaps a compost for their future garden lingers in the air.
Anti-Globalization Books, pamphlets, community meetings, movie screenings
and The Anti-War Show: The Art of Peace that opened Feb. 22 are ways ReAct
hopes to reach people, including the homeless. Most of their work thus far
has been directed toward those living on the street. ReAct works with Food
Not Bombs, a movement that began in Cambridge, Mass., in 1980 and spread
throughout the United States, Europe and Australia, preparing hot,
vegetarian food for anyone who wants it. In Omaha, Food Not Bombs has been
operating for about six years.
"A lot of us have been involved in the anti-globalization movement,"
Galleon said. "We had been seeing a lot of protesting and spectacles being
created, but we hadn't really seen any community-building happening, so we
wanted to start engaging a little bit more counterinstitution-building,"
Galleon said. "We thought that by putting together a community center that
we'd be able to provide a foundation to start building upon some of the
politics that we preach, try to put our theory into practice."
Although anti-capitalism and anti-globalization are what drive the ideas
behind ReAct, volunteer Rory Rehab pointed out, "This place isn't just for
anti-capitalists or people in the anti-globalization movement, just for
anyone who cares about humanitarian issues. Anyone can come out and help.
There's a lot of people who really don't agree with some of the people who
are working with the shop who completely disagree with our views, but they
come out and help."
The center has even piqued the curiosity of some U.S. Airforce members
stationed at Offutt Airforce Base in Bellevue. "I think that if we can
reach people out on the base, then we can reach anywhere in this
community," Galleon said.
Help Them Help Themselves "We're primarily interested in empowerment and
helping people think for themselves," he explained. "That's what
differentiates us from a lot of the leftist or liberal groups. We don't
want to go into people's communities or approach people to tell them what
to do; we want to provide the people with the resources and the knowledge
to act and think for themselves. We tell people to get their own initiative."
"Food Not Bombs is a movement that tries to address the root cause of
homelessness and poverty," Galleon said. "The shelters and the food banks,
they're doing great work, but I think they're only putting a Band-aid on
the situation. What we try to do is help empower a lot of the homeless
people. We have homeless people who come here and help us, and we try to
work with them. We try to approach them as human beings instead of just
people who live on the streets."
Hopeful to help the homeless gain more independence. Rehab plans on
establishing a community garden teaching them how to grow their own food.
Rehab supported Galleon, but acknowledged, "Most of the homeless we work
with have really bad problems with substance abuse and alcohol addiction,
and it's really sad because with most of those guys, with the garden, we're
probably not going to able to get them out there and work. All they really
care about is alcohol. It's really, really hard to try to sit down and talk
to someone and try to make them realize that, 'You're a victim, yeah, but
you need to work through this. You need to stop drinking, you need to start
working for yourself and better yourself.' A lot of what we're doing does
just try to alleviate the problem a little bit. We haven't really found
anything concrete and hard-hitting to really fix the problem. We're doing
what we can, whether it be feeding or letting them come in out of the cold."
ReAct Community Center is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through
Saturday. They may be reached by e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or by
stopping by during working hours. They are always looking for volunteers
and donations in any form. For more information, see their Web site at
http://omahareact.org.
__________________________________________________
The URL of the website with the article is
http://www.thereader.com/createpage.asp?contentID=1148
ReAct will be hosting the Great Plains Anarchist Caucus on March 15. All
anarchist individuals, groups and collectives residing in the Great Plains
are welcome to attend.
http://www.kansasanarchist.net/GPAN/gpan.htm
Link: http://www.kansasanarchist.net/GPAN/gpan.htm
Bobby Sartre writes on Friday February 28 2003 @ 07:51PM PST: [ reply |
parent ]
By way of clarification, the website for ReAct is:
http://www.omahareact.org
