Groups promote community activism

BtownActive Festival, held Saturday at Dunn Meadow, served as a good occasion to enjoy southern Indiana's early fall weather, live music and broccoli pizza with some of the campus and community's most activist-minded folks.\n"It's been a long one, especially for those guys in the sun. Glad I got a spot in the shade," said Mylo Roze as he offered pamphlets endorsing the Center for Sustainable Living, organic grapes and copies of The Bloomington Alternative, a progressive bi-weekly for which he's a contributing writer.\nThe Center for Sustainable Living, 521 W. Kirkwood Ave., is a non-profit organization Bloomington residents formed in 1992. The community group, which Roze said seeks to transform society to be in greater harmony with the world, was only one of a "Who's Who" list of social justice, environmental and humanitarian local student and community organizations and media initiatives participating in the all-day event. \nThe Indiana Public Interest Research Group, Boxcar Books and Community Center, Hip-Hop Congress, No Sweat!, Amnesty International and IU's Progressive Faculty Coalition were among the organizations represented.\nJohn Howard is an IU student studying media production and the founder of Bloomington Media Arts Group, a group that focuses on media as tools for local activism. He coordinated BtownActive Festival with the help of Katie Claussen, advocate for community engagement of Community Outreach & Partnerships in Service-Learning and an Indiana Daily Student employee.\nHoward, 36, said he organized the festival to heighten people's awareness of the work being done by campus and community groups and also to plug a new Web site, www.btownactive.net, an open publishing forum for promoting local arts and culture as well as grassroots activism, further enabling various groups to network in new ways.\n"Dunn Meadow is the perfect place for an event like this," Howard said. "Not only is it a free speech zone but it symbolically connects campus and community, and that's what this is all about."\nVolunteers noted it was a slow day audience-wise, as people drifted through and the festival apparently lost out to other weekend activities.\n"The turnout was good for a football game day," Howard said. "Everyone came together on short notice, and today served as a good warm-up for (future events)."\nDespite the meager attendance, many participants said the collaborative event was significant for the groups themselves.\nGabe Lantz represented the Art of Living Foundation. He said he saw the festival not only as a way to publicize his group's work, but also as a means of finding camaraderie with other groups to work with in the future.\n"At the beginning, it seemed groups were just out to get their messages out," Lantz said. "But as the day rolled on everyone tabling kind of got to know each other and what we were each about, and we kind of realized opportunities to get involved elsewhere"