The Advocacy Council for Human Rights

Hopefully the remodeling of our office is nearing completion. We are no longer boarded up and the new windows are in place. There is still interior work to be done, so we do not have a firm date for reopening. We are looking towards being able to have the office open again in early fall. At this time we are not planning to have regular office hours when we do open but will be available for special events and groups.

Part of our reorganizing also involves moving out of the north side of our space. The board made this difficult decision as one way to cut our overhead due to the lack of state funding this year. Part of this decision was also eliminating the Food Bank service for our clients. We hope that this money and energy saving measure will help us to work on other client services, perhaps even including food vouchers. We are also making available to our client base information about other food banks in the Bloomington area where they will be able to get food. There are currently 12 other locations that make food available to those in need. In the future MCATF will try to provide services that are not duplicated by other agencies.

As has been stressed before with the loss of our state funding grant, fund raising has become our primary focus for now. We are currently working on an Artist Against AIDS event in early November. And, as usual it will take a great deal of effort to make this work. We welcome anyone who would be interested, and invite you to our next fund raising meeting at the Task Force office, 313 N. Main, Bloomington at 5:30 p.m. on August 13.

Other volunteer opportunities exist on our Grant Writing Committee. While fund raising will meet our short term goals, we need to seriously look at more substantial forms for obtaining operating revenue. We very much need persons who are experienced and knowledgeable in this field. We also need persons who may not have such experience but are willing to volunteer for the “leg work.” If interested please email davidremesch@mcatf.org.

Please look for future notices both about our grand re-opening and our Artist Against AIDS fund raiser.