Hey NMers,

So far we've been tackling teen homelessness with the RE*Generation. We've raised funds, awareness, and empathy, and with the upcoming novella, hopefully more people will be aware about the homelessness problem more than ever!

What we'd like to know is this: What cause should the RE*Generation get involved with next? Let us know what you think!

Sara

Consider tackling the issue of social barriers. Today race, gender, religous beliefs, age, and sexual orientation are rentlessly being under attack by a lack of tolerance. A few ideas for projects:

• Mix It Up - A day at a local high school where a lunch can be segregated into different social groups can be quickly mixed up with the help of a few friends. Get a planning commitee together and come up with a random way to seat students as they enter the school cafeteria (for example, hand out numbers that correspond to a lunch table). When students are seated have your planning committee walk around and encourage people to meet one another. Have a bucket of questions for people to ask each other and switch off.
  
• Have a social barrier awareness day in your town. Talk to your city officials about hosting an event in a park or downtown area. This one will take a lot of prior planning! Set up designated areas for groups with different heritages. Encourage the groups to sell tradition food of the culture, or play traditional music with traditional dances. You can even hire a DJ for a center stage. You can get really creative! It's expensive but nothing that a some donations and fundraising can't take care of. At the end of the day, hold a discussion for people to address issues such as hate crime and social discrimination. Together come up with some ideas to battle these issues! It's fun and effective!

I think it would be great to tackle an idea of raising money for hurricane victims. Especially raise money for the poeple who suffered from Hurricane Katrina and/or Rita. If you raised money for New Orleans people I think many people would definitley donate money.