Would you join us 8/25 to make a difference for the Gulf? #CitizenGulf

This is a guest post by Jill Foster, one of the original team members of the #CitizenGulf project.

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It’s a tremendous show of partnership for Social Media Club to be supporting CitizenEffect’s National Day of Action next week on Wednesday, August 25th. It’s fantastic.

Are you in the Washington, DC area? If so, please join the local SMC-DC chapter at a meetup 8/25th, as apart of a National Day of Action and fundraising effort for Gulf children’s education.

Are you outside DC or in a different region all together? Perfect! Other cities are participating too next week, complete with jazz, friends, Hurricanes, and great conversation on helping the Gulf recover.

Some reasons why we’re inviting you to participate:

Last month I joined a nonprofit called CitizenEffect for their fact-finding mission trip to the Gulf – or called #CitizenGulf on Twitter. The goal was to learn directly from fishing families about how they’d been impacted by the BP oil spill (and also learn from local nonprofits supporting the Gulf region).

We saw a lot that was both humbling and difficult to observe.

After meeting fishing families in Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish one day, we stopped by a 9th Ward neighborhood. Many homes had been leveled or abandoned since Hurricane Katrina (of which the 5th year anniversary occurs next week). Either way, several vacant homes still stood as reminders of Katrina’s ruination.

We then continued on to Pensacola, Florida to discuss the oil spill’s impact with locals there and inspect beachfronts. Our team scoped out Casino Beach in particular, pictured below, and its tar balls rolling up on the sand (…my foot in comparison to a tar ball).

Fishing families had just started to rebound from Katrina, then the oil spill emerged…

Would you join DC’s Social Media Club chapter and CitizenEffect to create next steps for Gulf fishing families? It’s all happening on an awesome National Day of Action, Wednesday, August 25th.

If you’re in DC, please RSVP and we look forward to seeing you.

If you want to host a meetup or join your local SMC chapter, please check to see what may already be organized on the National Day of Action in your city.

How your efforts benefit children of Gulf fishing families (plus more ways to help)

In addition to planning meetups with friends and Social Media Club per above, you’re welcome to donate anytime or vote for a PepsiRefresh project to benefit Gulf communities. All funds raised through the CitizenGulf National Day of Action will be donated to Catholic Charities of New Orleans (less processing fees) for their After School Assembly program.

Thanks again Social Media Club for your great help in creating more possibilities for this region and these families.

Jill teaches communications through social media tools and community engagement in the Washington, DC area. She is the founder editor of Women Grow Business, co-founder of DC Media Makers, Blogger at Live Your Talk. Named by Forbes as one of 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. Winner of the Social Citizen Award on how technology could help communities in Washington, DC. Jill

Special thanks to #CitizenGulf local supporters

Check out the Oil Spill Browser Plug-in created by Jess3.

At any mention of BP, the word is blacked out and oil drips down.