Beyond Belief Network June Photo of the Month and Team of the Month

BBN teams reported 26 events and more than 1,800 hours of service in June! Our picture of the month was captured by BE. Orlando at a joint event with the Central Florida Freethought Community. The groups hosted a Pulse Remembrance blood drive in partnership with Target and OneBlood. Donors contributed 15 units of blood, which will impact 45 lives, and BE. Orlando also collected 97 science books to support summer literacy initiatives. 

The BBN team of the month for June is South Texas Atheists for Reason (STAR). As has become the norm, the 1,000 person auditorium was filled to capacity for each of the weekly events STAR hosted in June at Lackland Air Force Base. Every week, STAR provides humanist chaplains to lead basic trainees in discussions about things like logical fallacies, morality, and the rise of the nones. The discussions have become wildly popular because trainees from diverse backgrounds are listened to respectfully as they speak from their own experiences. Want to learn more about these discussions? Check out the most recent episode of The Humanist Experience, in which Evan Clark and Seráh Blain interview nonreligious servicemembers about how STAR is working to make sure “no religious preference” doesn’t mean “no moral support.”

STAR kept busy with its other regular volunteering activities in June as well. They gave hygiene supplies and food to San Antonio residents in need, helped harvest 1,500 lbs of cantaloupe at the farms supporting the San Antonio Food Bank, removed invasive chinaberry trees with the Watershed Wise Warriors program of the San Antonio River Authority, and put in a day helping with roofing on a Habitat for Humanity project.