Healthcare for freelancers just got a little bit better.

Today in downtown Brooklyn, the nation’s only state-of-the-art primary care practice for freelancers opened its doors. This facility will serve the city’s growing independent workforce, which includes  freelancers, entrepreneurs, part-timers, independent contractors, and the self-employed.

We, and I can truly say we, account for 1 out of 3 U.S. workers.

Just so you know, my family’s insurance plan happens to be from Freelancers Insurance Company (FIC). We pay approximately $1,200 per month for coverage. It sounds like things just got even better if this facility is as good as it sounds.

For quite some time, I have been  following the progress of this new medical practice developed by Freelancers Union founder Sara Horowitz, a recipient of a MacArthur Genius Award. Thanks to Horowitz’s vision, Freelancers Medical is open to FIC enrollees, offering primary care as well as preventative and personal wellness programs (guided meditation, yoga, mental health services, and nutrition counseling).

Very smart to have preventative health and wellness programs.

“I’m thrilled to launch Freelancers Medical, our new cutting-edge healthcare program with a dedicated primary care practice in the heart of Brooklyn,” said Horowitz and quoted in a recent press release.

“Forty-two million of the nation’s most innovative, entrepreneurial workers struggle to cover their basic healthcare needs because they’re freelancers, and don’t have the luxury of work-sponsored health insurance. That’s why we’re harnessing the growing market power of the independent workforce and re-imagining what healthcare can and should be for new economy workers.”

At Freelancers Medical’s primary care practice, patients can expect:

–No co-pay

–Free Wi-Fi

–Access to doctors and health coaches by phone, text, email, and Skype

–Free workshops onsite focused on health, wellness, and prevention, including healthy cooking classes, smoking cessation programs, meditation, yoga, acupuncture, and ergonomics.

I am excited to visit the facility soon.

Fortune has a story about the Hurricane Sandy Relief Kitchen at Old First Church started by  Andy Wandilak, the owner of Two Boots Pizza in Park Slope Brooklyn.

Here’s to Andy Wandilak, the owner of Two Boots Pizza in Park Slope Brooklyn. On the day Hurricane Sandy decimated entire neighborhoods of New York, he offered to feed and shelter the family of a musician who plays at his restaurant. The guy’s descriptions of the storm’s aftermath were tragic. So Andy started cooking. He used Facebook and Twitter to ask the restaurant’s patrons for support. By the weekend, he was serving up roughly 1,500 cups of soup daily.

Send your nominations in now for the annual Park Slope 100. Deadline is December 1, 2012. I haven’t done The  Park Slope 100 since 2010. How is that possible? I think it’s time to do it again. I have ideas, sure. But I need nominations from YOU, you who know people I’ve never even heard of. Please send them in. All nominations will be considered. Promise.

What is the Park Slope 100 you ask? 

The Park Slope 10o is a highly opinionated, subjective list of the most talented, energetic, ambitious, creative  and generous individuals in the Greater Park Slope area who reach outward toward the larger community and the world to lead, to help, to teach,  to create, to improve, to inform, to network, to change…

The people who have been on the Park Slope 100 are community activists, entrepreneurs, volunteers, spiritual leaders, publishers, bloggers, arts administrators, social workers, therapists, artists, writers, educators, politicians, chefs and restaurant owners and more…

The Park Slope 100 is in alphabetical order. Whenever possible, links to web sites, blogs, and/or more information is included so that you can learn more about these remarkable individuals.

The Park Slope 100 is sure to cause some controversy. There are many, many more people who deserve to be here. So please send your nominations in.

The Park Slope 100 was created by Louise Crawford and she takes full responsibility for it. I want to hear from you who YOU think should be on this list.

A petition to the President of the United States from a bar on Fifth Avenue and 8th Street in Park Slope, er, Brooklyn.

“Due to the changing nature of the neighborhood and the fact that we are beginning to take offense when potential customers come into the bar, look around them with disdain, and leave, immediately, we the people of Jackie’s 5th Amendment at 404 5th Avenue request the permission of the United States Government to peacefully secede from Park Slope and become our own neighborhood, to be tentatively known as ‘Brooklyn.”

As Thanksgiving approaches, I think we are all a little bit more aware of how stratified our city is. In the aftermath of  Hurricane Sandy, it was painful to watch as recovery to certain areas was painfully slow. A friend wrote yesterday on Facebook that he was still without  phone and electricity in Red Hook. Hugh was in Coney Island this morning and saw long lines of people waiting for food.

Here our City Councilmember Brad Lander addresses the disparity in the recovery effort and reaches out to New Yorkers to demand more for all the citizens of our city.

The past few weeks have been deeply trying ones for New Yorkers, with many lives and thousands of homes lost. The storm exposed not only our vulnerability as a city, but widespread inequality as well. Wall Street reopened one day after the storm, but many in public housing waited three weeks for heat, and many others remain without adequate shelter. I’ve heard many of you call it a tale of two cities.

But we’ve also seen extraordinary acts of generosity and courage, as people have come together to provide food, blankets, money, helping hands, comfort, and hope on an incredible scale.

As we turn from relief to recovery, we face a stark choice.

Will we simply rebuild what was there before—a city divided by inequality and poverty, vulnerable to climate change, with government decisions too often driven by corporate interests rather than the public interest?

Or will we build on the remarkable spirit of organized compassion we’ve seen—and try to create a city where everyone is protected, and no one is homeless? Will we rebuild two cities, or one?

Let’s rebuild by creating forward-thinking infrastructure and good jobs, while including residents in the decisions about the future of their communities.

Please sign our SignOn.org petition calling on Mayor Bloomberg to make this a recovery that genuinely works for everyone.

After Hurricane Katrina, rebuilding policies focused on corporate tax breaks rather than public housing. Here in New York, the 9/11 recovery ensured a resurgent Wall Street, but created a Lower Manhattan that was even less affordable for most New Yorkers.

We must invest significant public resources to rebuild our city and create the sustainable infrastructure we need. While we do that, we must also insure genuine economic opportunities, affordable housing, and a healthier and safer city for everyone.

Let’s reject a trickle-down recovery. Call on Mayor Bloomberg to invest in all New Yorkers and our neighborhoods, so New York City’s recovery creates a more sustainable, equal, and democratic New York.

A more sustainable recovery will invest in infrastructure we needed long before Sandy—like neighborhoods and environmental systems that are sustainable in the long term and help protect New York from extreme weather. We need to focus on counteracting climate change by expanding our mass transit system, promoting energy efficiency and green buildings, and accelerating regional alternative energy projects like solar, tidal power and wind farms.

Continue reading Brad Lander: Recovering As One City →

Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House has quite a few annual events that delight audiences and writers alike. There’s Edgy Moms; Writing War; In the Year of the ____: Celebration of Asian-American Writers; New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights; and Young Writers Night.

And then there’s Feast, which is always a treat AND a benefit for a local food pantry. It’s usually in early December and this year it will be December 6th at 8PM at the Old Stone House (336 Third Street between 4th and 5th Avenues, F to Fourth Avenue, R to Union Street).

This event, an evening of writing about food, was the brainchild of poet Michele Madigan Somerville. For quite a few years, she gathered poets, fiction writers, bloggers and memoirists to read about food as memory, food as metaphor, food as subject matter, food and sex; food and death, food as trigger for sensorial and juicy writing.

Ame Gilbert, a wonderful chef and a luminous writer of poetry and non-fiction, was included in all of Michelle’s FEAST evenings is now taking over. This years participants include:

Molly O’Neill, renowned writer, teacher and founder of the online Cook ‘n Scribble community

Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan, renowned author, blogger and editor of The Kitchn. She is also a poet at heart.

Aarela Martinez, renowned cultural emissary and restauranteur.

Sarah Safford, renowned lyricist and ukulele mama

Ame Gilbert, who is somehow renowned and pleasantly round!

The ‘Tails:

Feast: Writers on Food @ The Old Stone House

336 Third Street between Fifth and Fourth Avenues in Park Slope, Bklyn 11215

718-768-9135 or 718-288-4290

http://www.brooklynreadingworks.com

$5 donation includes refreshments

December 6th, 2012 @ 8:00 PM

Writing is definitely a form of therapy. But this reading is devoted to writers who WRITE about the talking cure and other forms of therapy. Join us for a 50-minute reading that will be in equal measures serious and hilarious with Leora Skolkin-Smith, Marian Fontana, Karen Ritter, Ira Goldstein and Louise Crawford.

Paging Dr. Freud.

Only the Blog at Two Moon is a monthly reading series produced by Louise Crawford (Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Brooklyn Reading Works and Brooklyn Social Media) at Two Moon Art House and Cafe (315 Fourth Avenue between 3rd and 2nd Streets in Park Slope).

Join us for a relaxed, social evening/performance at the Slope’s newest cultural spot with wine, coffee, delicious soups, sandwiches, salads and desserts.

Occupy Sandy needs to collect 2000 turkeys to be donated to residents of Coney Island. Fresh turkeys can be dropped off or shipped to on Tuesday, November 20 – 12 noon to 2PM.

Coney Island Generation Gap

2904 Neptune Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11224

If dropping off turkeys, please do so on Tuesday at the address above.

I just read an opinion  piece in the New York Times about the Gaza situation called “Trapped in Gaza” by Lara Aburamaden. 

It begins with the simple line: “I don’t know how the story ends.” Aburamaden’s piece is almost  heartbreakingly artful at a time when restraint and communication have gone out the window, in a region that is sorely in need of such things.

Lara writes of being  at a Nordic Film Festival when word came that there had been an assassination:

But halfway in, just as Sebbe’s story began to arc, the reel stopped, just as surely as the world around me.

A festival organizer interrupted the film and relayed the news: The Israelis, we were told, had just assassinated someone. There was already word of retaliatory rockets fired from Gaza. Things were going to get bad quickly, and we had better get home, where it would be safer.

So much is learned here. A Nordic Film Festival, the first of its kind, in Gaza. A rapt audience interrupted. Young people. Artists and intellectuals who must face death and destruction. Again.

Gaza. This is a human story as much as it is a political one. Aburamaden’s words bring to light the humanity of those who suffer there. Later in Aburamaden’s story we learn of a sister on the verge of her high school graduation and a bevy of siblings who sleep with furrowed brows.

The author, described in the New York Times bio as a photographer and a student of English in translation, has brought Gaza home to me as I sit in my apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I found some lovely photos of her’s on Flickr like the one at left of Gaza’s coastline and another one of a Turkish coffee pot on a grill.

In another paragraph, the author comtemplates the horrific photograph at the top of the page, which she did not take. In it a man whose heart has been severed by the death of his not quite one-year old son, holds his child who is wrapped in white.

As I contemplate my own mother’s tired eyes, I wonder: What happens to those who lose a child? And will I ever see my own? So far, in the war that began on Wednesday, only a handful of children and teenagers have died. Hiba was 19, Omar a month shy of his first year on the planet. (Omar’s picture, I have since seen, made the rounds on Facebook. But he himself was wound in white and faceless, a corpse cradled by his wailing father.) As for Ranana, she made it to 5 before something very big and very loud fell from the sky, ending her time here. I don’t know her either. But then again, I do.

Words. Humanity. A transmission from a place few of us have ever been. Her thoughts are powerful, sane and impossibly artful at a time when even art isn’t enough to contextualize the human tragedy that is going on.

Each day here lays bare the ugliness of war, and for my siblings and me, each scene of our movie starts the same: we are trapped. And that is where our story begins and ends.

So things ARE back to normal and there’s the usual weekend mishigas. There is no F train service between Jay Street Metro-Tech to 18 Avenue.

Okay.

In a piece in today’s Huffington Post , author Gina Barreca explores the larger issues raised when a young woman attaches herself romantically to an older man in a position of power. Gina is also a professor English and feminist studies, a funny person and the editor of Make Mine a Double. Here’s an excerpt from the Huff Post piece:

True, Paula Broadwell — who is almost 40 — isn’t so young that she flies half-fare or orders Happy Meals on a regular basis. Yet her youth captures our collective imagination because she represents the quintessential girl-who-goes-after-the-boss.

What is she (this quintessential character) going after when she goes after the idolized older man? I want to claim it is pride, rather than lust, motivating her. The boss — genuinely, sincerely, absolutely — appeals to the young woman. There are kid sighs, pouts and swoons over the idea of him.

Why?

I feel confident about discussing the allure of the boss because I’ve been that kid. I’m not a kid anymore, however, and these days, for me to develop a crush on a much older man would involve learning advanced CPR in preparation. But in my day I’ve had crushes on pretty much every guy I looked up to, worked for or whose class I attended — even the ones who looked like extras from Ironweed.

Pastor Tom Martinez (All Souls Bethlehem Church in Kensington and OTBKB) sent me this message from Rabbi Ellen Lippmann of Park Slope’s Kolot Chayeinu. She is one of the organizers of the annual and interfaith Children of Abraham Peace Walk. Here Rabbi Lippman quotes fellow human rights activist, Rabbi Arik Ascherman. Tom writes, “I found this helpful in this difficult time.”

The news from Israel and Gaza could not be worse: rockets flying, bombs bursting, death, destruction, violence unleashed. I find myself speechless with horror and fear and an odd kind of numbness whose main question is “Again?!?  When will they – or we – ever learn?”

To try to get a handle on the situation on Wednesday when I first got the news of the Israeli attack, I turned to online sites and various organizations and – of course – to the words of Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights. This time, as often, I found Arik’s words right and smart and somehow therefore comforting.

As the deadly exchanges grow and escalate, I share with you some of his words and would like to hear yours; how does this look from where you sit? I do not yet have words, only tears and frustration.

Hear/Here Arik, an Israeli writing from Israel:

“Most of us have biases burned into our hard drives. If our sympathies lie with the Palestinians, we see Zionist aggression and charred Palestinian babies. If our sympathies lie with Israel, we see terrified Israeli children with 15 seconds to run to a bomb shelter every time the siren sounds (According to one source, some 11,000 rockets in the last 4 years.) For all too many of us, our sympathies are all encompassing and exclusive. We see only Palestinian children or Israeli children.

Continue reading Rabbi Ellen Lippmann: I Do Not Have Words, Only Tears and Frustration →

When people want the scoop on the local Park Slope scene–from arts and entertainment to politics and on-the-spot news–they visit Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. (The name was inspired by the Thomas Wolfe story, “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn.”)

I just heard that today Borough President Marty Markowitz will be joining President Obama on his tour of New York City’s areas worst hit by Hurricane Sandy.

I’m pretty sure that means that Obama is coming to Brooklyn though it could also mean that he’s not coming to Brooklyn and Markowitz just happens to be on the tour or that Markowitz is the stand-in for Brooklyn being hard hit.

Red Hook, Coney Island, Dumbo and elsewhere in Brooklyn were devastated. But maybe not as bad as the Rockaways and Staten Island.

If he is coming to Brooklyn, the traffic could be bad. Just saying.

Please join me at Two Moon Art House and Cafe for Writers Who Sing, Singers Who Write, a Sandy Fundraiser and performance presented by Only the Blog at Two Moon.

The event is free but we’ll be collecting money. We’ll donate whatever you give to the OSH PSP Brooklyn Neighbors Hurricane Relief Fund or another appropriate charity helping locals recover from Sandy. There will also be a RAFFLE of a photo by Hugh Crawford, CDs by Mila Drumke and a book by Peter Silsbee.

TEAR IT DOWN by Jack Gilbert (1925-2012)

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body

The current Department of Education proposal to rezone parts of District 15 is expected to affect kindergarten aged students for school year 2013-2014 in PS10, PS39, PS107, and PS321.

A new zone map will be proposed that will include some of the same blocks that were proposed last month, but will also include some blocks that hadn’t been proposed previously.

There’s a meeting TONIGHT, TUESDAY, 11/13, 2012 from 6:30 PM – 9:00 PM

Sign up for public comment 6-6:30pm

Please limit your comment to 2-3 minutes

It’s happening at the John Jay Educational Campus,  237 Seventh Avenue (between 4th and 5th Avenues), Subway: D, R to 9th Street, F, G, to 7th Avenue, Bus: B61, B63, and B67.

The DUMBO Rebuild Fundraiser is on for tomorrow, November 14, 2012.

In the aftermath of Sandy, there is a concerted effort in DUMBO to work together to support the many small businesses that make the neighborhood so unique. As many half a dozen businesses are still completely closed after the storm, and many more are still a long way from being back to normal.

Some of my favorite Brooklyn spaces were damaged by the storm. Impacted businesses include Galapagos Art Space, Governor, One Girl Cookies, Aegir Board Works, 66 Water Street, Almondine, powerHouse Arena, Punto Bianco, Smack Mellon, Ignazio’s, 7 Old Fulton, Rabbit Hole Studios, Brooklyn Roasting and more…

Despite heavy flood damage, Galapagos, an art space/bar in the neighborhood re-opened November 3rd with help from lots of neighbors doing cleanup and they are hosting the Dumbo Improvement Districts fundraiser tomorrow night.

In addition, they just announced an awesome raffle—the winner gets Mary Markowitz to record their voicemail message!

Help DUMBO Rebuild Fundraiser (more details here: http://dumbo.is/blog_posts/donate-now-to-help-dumbo-businesses)

When: Wednesday, November 14, 6:00 p.m.

Where: Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main St., DUMBO

Why: More than a dozen of your favorite DUMBO spots suffered significant damage during Sandy (including our amazing host, the indefatigable Galapagos Art Space!!!). In the coming weeks and months, they will struggle put their pieces back together.

Who: Impacted businesses and art spaces

Two Boots Brooklyn and Old First have officially moved their recovery operation to Old First Reformed Church, at 729 Carroll street.

There they are preparing delicious food for those without all over Brooklyn

If anyone would like to volunteer with them, they need help after 10AM. Show up there and ask for Sara. She’ll put you to work!

CG CORD (Carroll Gardens Coalition for Respectful Development) forwarded this letter from the Environmental Protection Agecny about cleaning up the Gowanus Area after Hurricane Sandy.

November 2, 2012

On October 29, 2012, during Hurricane Sandy, a portion of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, New York overtopped its banks, causing the flooding of some area residences and businesses. The water receded after the storm. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency immediately conducted a visual inspection of the length of the canal and the surrounding area and did not observe sediment on the streets. The EPA also collected samples of standing water from several buildings and will make the results public as soon as they are available.

The Gowanus Canal is contaminated by PCBs, coal tar waste, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds and bacteria from many years of industrial discharges, spills, storm water runoff and combined sewer overflows. The site was added to the federal EPA Superfund list of the nation’s most contaminated sites in March 2010.

If you live near the Gowanus Canal and experienced flooding from the canal during the storm, there are simple steps to follow in cleaning up:

Remove or pump out standing water.

Use bleach to kill germs

Wear rubber boots, rubber gloves and goggles.

Open windows and doors to get fresh air when you use bleach.

Clean hard things with soap and water. Then clean with a mix of 1 cup of household liquid bleach in 5 gallons of water. Use bleach that does not have an added scent (like lemon). Scrub rough surfaces with a stiff brush and air dry.

If you don’t have household liquid bleach, use soap and water.

NEVER mix bleach with ammonia or other cleaners.

Wash clothes worn during cleanups in hot water and detergent. These clothes should be washed separately than uncontaminated clothes.

The Huffington Posts’ Daniel Marens reports that there’s a humanitarian crisis in Coney Island two weeks after Hurricane Sandy.

The situation in public housing projects in Coney Island, Brooklyn remains a “humanitarian crisis” in which the government and the Red Cross have been nearly completely absent, according to Eric Moed, a volunteer aid worker with Occupy Sandy.

Friday is Moed’s fifth day volunteering with Occupy Sandy, an ad hoc hurricane relief group formed by former Occupy Wall Street activists. Moed, an architect from Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, goes door to door in the 30-40 public housing buildings in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn to distribute food, water and supplies, and help address sanitation and medical needs. The projects in Coney Island remain without power, and often without water and necessities in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Accounts of these conditions have been corroborated in theNew York Daily News.

 

Old First Dutch Reformed Church (pictured left in 1666) posted on Facebook the Dutch Prayer for New York that was prayed in his cousin’s church in the Netherlands on Sunday.

Mensen hebben mensen nodig

om elkaar te dragen,

om elkaar tot leven te brengen

Mensen hebben mensen nodig

om voor elkaar op te komen,

om samen te werken aan welzijn en geluk.

Mensen hebben mensen nodig

om te laten zien wie U bent,

God van Liefde, God van gerechtigheid.

Wek dan die kracht in ons.

Doe de liefde in ons ontvlammen,

die ons omkeert naar elkaar,

die ons doet zorgen voor elkaar.

Dat wij U liefhebben.

Dat wij onze naasten beminnen.

Dat wij onszelf kunnen beminnen.

Pastor Meeter writes: “This prayer conveys the essence of being a Christian” and means something close to what is below, which is the auto-translation from Facebook:

People need people to come together, to work together to well-being and happiness.

People need people to show who you are,

God of Love, God of righteousness.

Do the love in our ignite, which reverses us to each other, which makes us concerned for each other.

That we love you.

That we love our neighbors.

That we can love ourselves.

Brooklyn is redefining what it means to be a rare bookseller. In fact, the borough is turning into a haven for indie rare and antiquarian dealers who are reaching out to a different kind of collector, one who understands the value of the book at a time when its future is in doubt.

On December 1, 2012 from noon to 6PM, The Old Stone House and Honey and Wax Booksellers are presenting the VERY FIRST Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair featuring rare and extraordinary books, a feast for collectors and those who just love uncommon, beautiful books.

I think it’s going to be a very cool event, the first of its kind with booksellers from Park Slope, Bushwick,Williamsburg, Dumbo, and Cobble Hill.

Heather O’Donnell, who is organizing the fair along with Kim Maier of The Old Stone House, is shaping up to be something of a leader of this indie rare books scene in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn’s love affair with the literary continues. A highlight of the event will be a reading of a rare first edition copy of The Gift of the Magi, the classic Christmas tale by O’Henry, read by a surprise Brooklyn lit notable. 

Who will it be? Who will it be?

This group of  independent Brooklyn booksellers with a shared interest in print history will fill the Old Stone House with some of their favorite rare, vintage, and out-of-print books. Get to know your local booksellers, and be surprised and inspired by books you didn’t even know you wanted!

Participants include:

Book Thug Nation, Williamsburg, est. 2009

Freebird Books, Cobble Hill, est. 2004

Honey & Wax Booksellers, Park Slope, est. 2012, www.honeyandwaxbooks.com

Human Relations, Bushwick, est. 2012, www.humanrelationsbooks.com

Open Air Modern, Williamsburg, est. 2009, www.openairmodern.com

P.S. Bookshop, DUMBO, est. 2006, www.psbnyc.com

Singularity & Co., DUMBO, est. 2012, www.savethescifi.com

Unnameable Books, Prospect Heights, est. 2006, www.unnameablebooks.net

Also for sale: antiquarian maps and prints of Brooklyn, offered by Prints Charming.

Full disclosure: Honey & Wax is a client of Louise’s firm Brooklyn Social Media.

The devastation caused by Sandy in the New York and New Jersey area cannot be overstated. Homeland Security head Janet Nepolitano estimated that the area affected is the size of Europe.

That really is staggering.

In Brooklyn, Gowanus and Red Hook Houses were still without electricity until Saturday and some apartments may still be without power. The clean up in Red Hook, Coney Island and elsewhere is massive. Many businesses in Dumbo, including the beloved River Cafe, were badly damaged.

This is just a calamity that keeps unfolding.

Look to the helpers as Fred Rogers (PBS’s Mr. Rogers) used to say. That’s what gives people hope because in the face of nature’s wrath, it is comforting to know that first responders, firefighters, police officers and regular citizens are willing to risk their lives for others.

The organizing efforts of Occupy Sandy have also been heartening. In Brooklyn the St. Jacobi Church in Sunset Park has become mission control for vast, well-organized and on-going Sandy relief efforts.

That said, help has not come fast enough for some communities and going forward City officials must construct ways to provide relief after a storm of this magnitude.

If you’re looking for a way to help, Park Slope Parents has a great list of what’s going on and what you can do. 

From Moveon.org this morning, a list of seven shocking facts about veterans:

1. One third of the adult homeless are vets. 2. 70% of these suffer from substance abuse problems. 3. 45% suffer from mental illness. 5. There are an estimated 196,000 homeless vets on any given night. 6. 3-11% of homeless vets are female. 7. The current unemployment rate for vets is 12% while the general population is 9.1%.

The US Goverment states that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the leading cause of homelessness among veterans.

But that’s just part of the story. In honor of Veterans Day, an important event celebrating veterans who write and offer insight—through fiction, memoir and poetry—about what it means to be a soldier in the 21st century. On Nov. 15 at 8PM at the Old Stone House. $5 suggested donation includes wine and refreshments.

Brooklyn Reading Works presents Writing War: Fiction, Memoir and Poetry by Vets curated by Peter Catapano of the New York Times.

Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead and a new memoir Hotels, Hospitals and Jails will be on hand, as well as Maurice Decaul, Matt Gallagher, Philip Klay, Mariette Kalinowski and Roy Scranton

When: Thursday, November 15 at 8PM:

Where: The Old Stone House (336 Third Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215 between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, 718-768-9135 or 718-288-4290) site of the very bloody Battle of Brooklyn, the first and largest conflict of the Revolution.

As you probably know, Fairway Market in Red Hook was seriously damaged during Hurricane Sandy. The store is closed temporarily.

In the picture to the left, Fairway staff disposes of food ruined by Sandy.

The store has been working  with vendors and donating truckloads of food, water and other staples to local food banks, emergency relief shelters, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters in Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the areas in and around the city.

The company has been working with the Borough President’s Office, the Mayor, City Council, and other elected officials to ensure that the food, meals and merchandise are going where they are most needed.

The Red Hook store will remain closed until a total cleanup and renovation are complete, which is expected to take about two to three months.

Improvements to the store are planned: a full-scale restaurant on the second floor of the historic building overlooking the Statue of Liberty, with a menu prepared by Chef Mitchel London.