The People VS Wells Fargo

Homeowner Steve Boudreaux, who we've been working with alongside Occupy Our Homes ATL and the Cobb Coalition for Change, hosted a press conference outside his home at 3 pm to declare that he is fighting to keep his home off Rubes Landing in Marietta.

We plan to support Steve and stand along side of him as he refuses to leave the property until Wells Fargo makes a deal that keeps him in his home.

After battling unemployment and struggling to make payments on his mortgage, Boudreaux applied for an emergency home loan modification to stay in his home at a rate he could afford.

Boudreaux said everything was all set to move forward until the IRS delayed in getting tax transcripts to his bank.

Wells Fargo pushed forward with a foreclosure sale, according to Boudreaux. The transcripts were delivered the day after the foreclosure sale.

A demonstration was held Friday outside of the Wells Fargo branch where Boudreaux took out his loan.

On Monday, tents were be pitched and supporters began a 24/7 vigil until Wells Fargo makes a deal to keep Boudreaux in is home.

"Georgia is now the epicenter of the foreclosure crisis. We have to do something about this, and we have to do it now," says Occupy Homes organizer Allie McCullen.

Be The Change 2011 Day 2

Day two of Be The Change was all about rolling up sleeves and getting down with what movement building is all about, learning how to identify root causes of problems in our communities, and effective tools to create the change we want to see in Georgia.

The day started off with a workshop on movement building. It's a workshop that I've done the last few years, but this year the lovely and talented Dejah Ault did the bulk of facilitating. The workshop focused on solid models designed to start conversations and build relationship with communities you're working in.

After the workshop there was a social justice market place. Several amazing organizations set up tables with literature and spoke with youth about their work. Atlanta Indy Media, Georgia Students for Public Higher Education, Women's Feminist Health Center, Student Career Alternatives Program, and Art as an Agent for Change were all there.

After lunch the day brought a bunch of high impact presentations on not only what Dr. King referred to as the giant triplets of evil(militarism, racism, and poverty), but also on effective tools to create change in the community. We were blessed have a crew of super talented, dynamic facilitators from some of our closet ally organizations including Anton Flores from Alterna, Allie McCullen from Georgia Students for Public Higher Education, Dawn Gibson from Atlanta Indymedia, Charmaine Davis from Working Women 9-5, Jeremy Foreman from Hands On Southeast Georgia, and Pablo Paredes from the Bay Area American Friends Service Committee kept the energy high, and the information flowing. I was surprised at the amount of information participants were able to soak up. During youth report backs I remember thinking, "dang, these youth are ready to facilitate the workshops that they just got out of!"

Every social movement has used art to express ideas. Some so art is the essence of human expression. We've all had moments when art spoke to us in ways a speech could never do. Art as an Agent for Change worked with WonderRoot Community Art Center to put together a program Saturday night called, "The Art of Activism" and they invited youth to plug their talents into it. I gotta say it was by far the dopest thing I've every seen AAC put together. Not only was there a barrage of amazing spoken word, music performances, and youth putting their talents out in front of folks, there was also live painting going down during the show.Folks were just blown away by the work of artist Corey Barksdale.

We ended the night with a big bonfire with smores, and a lot of great conversation at the lovely landtrust.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Perimeter Students Sign Failing Grade

Today several of us spent some time at Dunwoody Georgia Perimeter College Campus talking to students about anticipated education legislation about to be introduced at the capitol this week.

The legislation will likely require another round of tuition and fee hikes for all college students attending public universities. It would also divest 300 million dollars from k-12, shorten the pre-k day, and dramatically cut the HOPE scholarship.

Students that we spoke to we very much aware of the personal costs of last years budget cuts but many were unaware of the implications the current purposed cuts would have on their pocket books and the low income k-12 schools.

Almost every student was eager to sign one of our failing grade postcards, which we plan to hand deliver to the Georgia Senate in the next week or so.

We were also excited to have a a large stack of report cards from Athens hand delivered by UGA student Allie McCullen!

This is our last week push to get every card we got signed and back to our office so we can deliver them all at the same time. We'll have the cards at our downtown office, and we'll have them at the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition Statewide meeting in Macon this weekend for those of you that haven't yet signed one!


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee