wazaroff's Blog

Working Gear deserves your used men's clothes.

wazaroff — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:09:46 -0800

Recently I went through my closet and pulled out some work boots I never use and some not-so-badly used dress shirts and slacks. I wondered if there was a place in town where clothing like this could go, sort of like Dress For Success, but for men.

I found Working Gear. Their mission is:

Working Gear Clothing Society was established for the following purposes:

To assist unemployed men who are in the process of returning to work
To promote the well being and self-esteem of unemployed men who face barriers in their search for employment

I emailed them and found out that they are open for donations every Saturday from 10am to 3pm. They are located at 87 East Pender Street in Vancouver.

I dropped by this morning and was greeted by two men, who showed me around their small but amazing operation. Their office is full of men's clothing. Suits, shoes, boots, shirts, slacks. All the things a man would need for a job interview, a construction job, or on the job in an office. They told me that they see eight men each Saturday by referral and appointment to get them outfitted.

Whenever I get rid of old clothes, I always wonder if they are going to people who really need them, or to a store who resells them, or to people just looking for a bargain. With Working Gear, I know where my clothes will end up.

What I had totally forgotten was that they had won the ChangeSomething contest we ran on this site a couple of years back. While I was chatting with the two guys who were there today, they asked me how I knew of them. I was stumped. This is definitely an organization worth supporting, and I'm happy to have rediscovered them.

Here's a map of where you can donate.

About last night...

wazaroff — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:02:00 -0800

Last night was such a moving and soul-shifting night for me.

Although I'm from Vancouver, I lived in the States for eleven years. I became an American in 1998 to vote for Al Gore. I take politics pretty seriously, especially US politics. My wife and I could not believe what happened with the 2000 election - it took us ages to get over it. What surprised us the most was the apathy. That the country beating its chest loudest about democracy could have an election shifted away from the winner, and no one seemed to care, no protests, no riots.

This apathy led the way for eight years that were, pardon my language, totally fucked up.

My wife and I moved back to Canada five years ago, and the conversation about our move started simply with a joke about how if Bush actually won the next election (meaning 2004) we'd move back to Canada. Once we spoke about it openly, even as a joke, we realized there was a deeper truth to our words. We didn't want to raise a kid in the US, we wanted to come back to Canada. It mattered. Home beckoned.

I still carry around the stub in my wallet from my ballot cast against George Bush in 2004. It was close, but Americans had not yet woken up to the truth about their situation. They were still deluded that their President was doing all right. The apathy continued. Within months of the election that confidence was shattered forever, and Bush's approval ratings slid to record lows, and he became increasingly irrelevant. People started waking up to the truth of their reality, what they had allowed to happen in their names.

Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic convention was a clarion call to me. We had it on tape and showed it to all our friends. It was a new voice of politics, it communicated in a deeper way, it broke thorough. It mattered.

Watching Obama, whom I have supported since he announced his Presidential bid so many months ago, rise from relative obscurity to where he is now, seeing his deep political acumen, fantastic strategy, enviable discipline and awesome integrity has been the most amazingly inspiring political event of my life. I doubt greatly I'll ever have another like this. He is the political love of my life, and I'll never forget it.

And now he is President-elect. I don't think it's sunk in yet. It's gonna take me some time.

If it simply meant the end of the last terrible eight years, that would be enough.

If it meant the Democrats rising to power again, that would be enough.

If it it meant that young people finally found their place in the political system, that would be enough.

If it was simply a man with a very foreign name being accepted as President, that would be enough.

If it was simply that young African Americans will grow up in a world where they can really believe they too can be President, that would be enough.

But the sheer complex enormity of it all, the layered meaning, the depth of emotion it brings is too much for me too handle.

It hasn't sunk in yet, but it will. And it is the greatest gift I could imagine Americans giving themselves. It is a moment of profound change. Part of me wants to go back South and be a part of it. But I will watch from the sidelines, hoping that even a small part of the hope and promise of an Obama presidency can be realized.

From now on things will be different. How can they not be?

Yes we can.

Hitting the Farmer's Markets

wazaroff — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:42:31 -0700

Now that summer is really here, I gotta change my behaviour and hit all the farmer's markets I can. If I can't eat locally in the summer in Vancouver, when the heck can I?

The Power of Coal

wazaroff — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 22:22:10 -0700

I just came across this amazingly astutue and funny video. It's an inspiring look at what keeps our continent running... coal. A must-watch.

ChangeSomething: Help people with limited assets save

wazaroff — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 08:07:35 -0700

I've been thinking long and hard about an organization that I'd want $1,000 to go to. Now, in some ways this is just an intellectual exercise for me, because I'm a Vancity employee and therefore ineligible for this contest. But perhaps someone else wants to endorse this organization.

One of the things that's really opened my eyes since starting at Vancity is how money can create change in people's lives. For those in our community who aren't in a position to save, helping them start to build assets is crucial to break cycles of poverty and homelessness.

I recently discovered the Future Foundations program, which Vancity supports. This organization accepts people with no assets and helps them grow their savings by giving them 300% interest. Often these people are single moms who want to return to school, start a business or buy a home. They put aside $1 and they end up with $3. Their savings accelerate and they can make profound change in their lives.

It's a wonderful organization and one I support with this entry into the ChangeSomething contest.

An Inconvenient Truth mashup

wazaroff — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 13:25:14 -0800

I came across this great video - a mashup of An Inconvenient Truth and Malphunktion. Check it out...

What took me so long?

wazaroff — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:46:10 -0800

I'm fairly green, I think. Try not to consume too much,we own a Prius, I mostly walk to work. But we have never composted before. I can't quite say why.

We were in Seattle over the holiday and they have mandatory recycling, which is amazing. They also have a city-wide yard and food waste pick-up program. This floored me.

So when we got back, we got a used feta container from a place on the Drive and have started collecting food waste for composting. Our building has a couple of compost bins out back.

Why didn't I do this ages ago?

What's the price of that again?

wazaroff — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:29:44 -0800

I don't like to be someone who leaves a mess for other people to clean up. And that's what this is all about. I get a good price for a certail product, and the reason it's so cheap is because it's shipped halfway around the world in polluting ships, made by poorly paid workers in countries with limited environmental regulations.

By thinking more about where and how the things we buy are made, we can make sure that, whenever possible, the cost of those products include all the externalities that other governments and communities have to pay for.

Australia is bursting all over

wazaroff — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:51:40 -0700

What is going on in Sydney Australia? They are an Olympic city (Summer too, not the puny Winter Games), they're on the water, they have lots of immigration, a jewel of a city. Sounds like Vancouver.

But their housing bubble exploded all over the place. Now, combined with crazy levels of personal debt, they have a new category of 'pay-later poor'.

Culture and the Struggle for Human Rights. A talk by Michael Parenti.

wazaroff — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 12:00:24 -0700

Hi all,

I thought I'd post about a free event Vancity is hosting about Human Rights on Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 7:30pm at the Italian Cultural Centre.

As author of more than 20 books, dynamic presenter Michael Parenti speaks on how culture is not always a neutral phenomenon and is often an instrument of social control and contested power. How do human rights figure in cultural struggles? And why should we think of human rights as a global phenomenon? Mr. Parenti will also speak on how globalization is threatening local sources of production and self-sufficiency, and how we should expand the concept of human rights to include environmental sustainability.

More info can be found here.

Enjoy!
Wm