October Beyond Belief Network Roundup

Beyond Belief Network teams kept themselves busy in October. In addition to their regular commitments to working with people experiencing homelessness, cleaning up adopted areas of their communities, and providing alternative Sunday services for Air Force trainees, BBN teams held a blood drive, held a fundraiser to benefit Puerto Rico residents following Hurricanes Irma and Maria, and participated in Light the Night. Check out all the good these teams have been doing in their communities.

In Grand Junction, Colorado, Humanists Doing Good spent a morning cleaning their stretch of adopted highway. Volunteers collected about 10 bags of trash in a half mile stretch of highway. They even had more people show up than had signed up to help! (Featured photo)

Responding the devastation in Puerto Rico, Sunday Assembly Los Angeles (SALA) members had a meal at an LA restaurant that was donating 25% of the day’s sales to hurricane relief. SALA also collected supplies for Puerto Rico. To support people in their LA community, SALA collected about 2000 dollars worth of toys in a toy drive for gently used toys for Baby 2 Baby, a charity for young families.

For the fifth year in a row, Camden County Humanists got involved with Light The Night. Several members of their group spent most of Saturday prepping sandwiches and desserts for a bake sale on Sunday at a local department store. In just a few hours, they raised $200 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Other fundraisers set up by members of the group raised over $1000 surpassing their team goal! Congratulations on such successful events Camden County Humanists!

Central Ohio United Non-Theists (COUNT) organized an Atheist Reunion & Revival (ARR) this month to mark five years of successful volunteer activities. Here’s to another five!

COUNT celebrated exceeding 500 members, more than 1,000 hours worked at the Columbus Ronald McDonald House (RMH) by 19 volunteers since 2013, Beyond Belief Network 2017 Gold Level status, four 2017 Day of Reason Proclamation requests (one of which prompted an Upper Arlington City Council secular invocation), over 700 hours worked (with HCCO and SSA at OSU) at the Van Buren Drive shelter and their Bleed-N-Feed expansion. Although the ARR was primarily a celebration of anniversaries and milestones, they also collected $30 and 20 lbs of food for the Mid-Ohio Foodbank bringing the total raised in Columbus CoR events to $11,406.37 and 1,530 lbs of food.

October wasn’t just about celebrating for COUNT. Volunteers worked as housewarmers at the Columbus Ohio Ronald McDonald House (RMH). RMH provides housing and meals to families with children being treated at Nationwide Childrens Hospital and other area hospitals. The volunteer housewarmers worked with guests to provide a home-like environment. (no pic)

Despite a rainy start to the day, Austin Atheists Helping the Homeless were left with a cool and crisp morning for their October giveaway. Over 160 people went through their line to receive toiletries, juice, socks, and other items. Because of the donation from Support the Girls – Austin in September from last month, they were well-stocked with feminine hygiene products for this giveaway. They also had a donation of 36 reading glasses from their Amazon wish list that fared very well. Another special item, batteries, were a big hit too. Forteen volunteers that showed up, despite the rain, to help Austin Atheists Helping the Homeless’ friends and neighbors, including folks from the Atheist Community of Austin.

South Texas Atheists for Reason had nearly 1000 trainees in attendance at each of their three Sunday secular meeting at Lackland Air Force Base. The topics at the meetings were death and how to handle it in a Humanist way, morality, and fallacies and how to identify them. At every meeting they show science and nerd news updates and end our service with a perspective video.

Twelve Minnesota Atheists volunteers cooked egg bake and brought fruit and donuts to feed nine children and six adults at the Family Place. As usual, the event when off without a hitch. (no pic)

October was a busy month for the Beyond Belief Network teams. These events helped people in their neighborhoods and communities. This is truly humanism at work.