Let Live Foundation

Hey everybody. We are pleased to announce the dates for this year’s Let Live Conference. Once again, on the campus of Portland State University. Plenty of details to work out, but at least we know it’s gonna be June 25,26, and 27. Start making plans. xoxo

For those of you who missed, or want to share with others, this month’s talk w/ Jasmin Singer, here’s a video. Please feel free to embed it on your site, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter… whatever. Spread the word.

In anticipation of the December 13th Let Live End of Year Community party, we thought it’d be nice if we re-watched Will Potter’s opening talk from last summer’s Let Live Conference. We really need to all be thinking of how we can best be involved in our own local communities, and get to work making things better. Our numbers are limited, let’s use them to their full potential, OK?

from Let Live Foundation on Vimeo.

***Please leave comments on the Facebook note HERE or by emailing info @ letlivefoundation.org. Thanks.***

The Let Live Foundation has been putting on sorta monthly animal rights events for 2 years now and it is getting very discouraging seeing the same few people come. Especially considering the number of people I’ve met around the country who think Portland has a thriving community of activists.

Last year we figured the low turnouts might have been because our topics didn’t have a broad enough appeal. This year we tried very hard to broaden that appeal by doing bigger, better events but doesn’t seem to be helping.

Last month we had Lisa Shannon, who is a longtime vegan and human rights activist, speak about her experiences starting a super successful project from the ground up. She has a book coming out about her work, and was on Oprah recently. We were worried the room we’d rented was going to be too small as it only held 60 or so people. 5 to 10 people came. I assure you everyone in the room will tell you they were profoundly moved by her story. Hearing her speak left me very inspired and with a ton of information I didn’t have before.

Last night we showed the award winning Mercy For Animals documentary “Fowl Play” at the Hollywood Theater (we hoped to cover the cost of renting the theater with donations) and maybe 15 people showed up, outside of the organizers. The afternoon before we had Matt Rossell lead a discussion about how to discuss fur and the fur industry. Matt has more experience with fur, on the street, and working undercover on a fur farm, than anybody else I can think of. Outside of the organizers, I think there were 10 people there.

We started Let Live Foundation because we felt Portland had a lot of energetic people who just needed an entry point to get active. In a town with this many vegans/veggie people and the reputation it has as being the vegan capitol of the world, it felt like a safe bet that a lot of folks would be interested in events if we put them on.

We’ve been very deliberate in our language and choice of subject matter to be as inclusive as possible so new folks don’t feel intimidated and more seasoned activists feel that their experience and input is welcomed at events. We’ve tried to get across that we’re trying to build community, no matter where you are in your knowledge, activism, etc. We’ve tried to schedule events at different times and on different days to accommodate peoples schedules.

We’ve tried everything we can think of to expand the community of people here and attendance at our events is not going up.

So, what should we do? We need feedback desperately because we are using up our scant resources (money, time, enthusiasm) and don’t seem to be making any progress with our goals. This has been especially discouraging lately, for me personally, because I feel like the quality of the events we’re doing is really high. I’ve learned so much lately and gotten so much inspiration from the speakers and film we’ve shown.

We could really use some specific feedback about what is keeping people away from these events or how folks in other towns get people to show up for stuff. We’d also love suggestions for topics people might like us to put on events about.

We’re doing these events to try and help folks be better informed, feel some community, and feel more empowered. When people don’t come out for stuff we are left wondering what we can do differently, so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks to Matt for filling in at the last minute.

Hey folks, if you do that there Twitter thing, please follow us (letliveAR).

Dear Friends,

Thank you to everyone who took time out of their busy lives to join us for the Let Live Conference this summer (check out all the new videos now online!). The energy and sense of community was truly inspiring. But we can’t let it stop there – we have to keep pushing forward and inspire others to get involved!

To do our part, we are kicking off our monthly Let Live Series on Sunday, October 25th at our *new location*, the Dishman Community Center, conveniently located at 77 NE Knott Street in Portland, Oregon. The Let Live Series is a monthly series of speakers, workshops and social events dedicated to promoting animal rights activism and education. This year’s line up of events is going to be bigger and badder than ever so check the website regularly and stay in the loop!

Also, Let Live is also proud to announce our official status as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization! Help us celebrate by getting involved! With your help we can make a difference.

Hey everybody!

Less than a week to go, hope you’re ready. Just a few things we’d like to mention in no particular order and in handy bulleted points. Here we go:

• Please try and come to the opening party on Friday night if you can. Sure to be fun and Will Potter is always a great speaker.
• Don’t forget the fun night at Bye and Bye on Saturday night. Come hang out and eat and talk to your new pals. All details on our website.
• Recheck the schedule, some things may have moved. Plan out in advance what you wanna see, there are some tough choices to make, sorry.
• There may be a couple of people trying to do interviews at Let Live. One person is working on a documentary and is renting out a room at PSU to film in. This does not mean that we know him, his true intentions, or endorse his project. We urge everybody to just use your best judgment with regards to talking to ANYBODY. I’m sure this doesn’t even need to be said, but… we felt it should still be put out there.
• We’re trying our darndest to make this event as eco-friendly as possible. All the food service items will be compostable and we’ve really tried to minimize paper usage, opting to print big schedule posters instead of individual registration packets like last year. Please bring your own scratch paper, pens, and reusable water bottles. Thanks in advance for help with this.
• Oh yeah, the full street address of the Smith Memorial Building is 724 SW Harrison St, Portland, OR 97201. Plop that into your internet direction makers or GPS or whatever.
• Ummm, what else? Parking info is on the conference page (http://www.letlivefoundation.org/conference/), take note.

That’s about it. Come ready to learn, get inspired, and take your new energy home with you to get active for the fuzzy-wuzzies. They need you. See you soon.

xoxo the Let Live crew