Rubicon Programs

E-news

September 2005

 

NEWS & STORIES FROM RUBICON PROGRAMS

1) You’re invited! Rubicon’s Grand Opening in Berkeley on November 3
2) See Rubicon Art at Richmond Farmer’s Market on September 23
3) A huge thanks to the 40+ volunteers during the Week of Caring!
4) Participant profile: Michael McArthur
5) Rubicon Bakery goes national!
6) Look for your paper newsletter – join our mailing list!

1) You’re invited! Rubicon’s Grand Opening in Berkeley on November 3

Join Honorary Co-Host Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Honorary Co-Host Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, a distinguished Honorary Host Committee, and the Rubicon Board of Directors on Thursday, November 3, 2005 from 8:30am-10:00am to officially open our doors in Berkeley!

The event is FREE and will be held at our new offices at 1918 Bonita Avenue, close to the heart of downtown Berkeley. It will be a vibrant event complete with official ribbon cutting, delicious Rubicon coffeecakes, tours of our programs, press, and community and business leaders.

And we invite your company to serve as an event sponsor! By sponsoring this event you will be associated with “one of the 25 groups that are changing the world” (Fast Company magazine, 2004 & 2005), and an organization that has a track record of over 30 years of experience helping persons who are homeless, unemployed, and who have disabilities to achieve self sufficiency. Each sponsorship level has benefits. All sponsors are featured in promotional materials, press releases, event signage and announcements and will have the opportunity to attend a VIP reception.

To see the full list of Honorary Host Committee members, learn exactly where our new office is, and sign up to sponsor the event,

Click here!

2) See Rubicon Art at Richmond Farmer’s Market on September 23

Rubicon Programs' artists will display and sell their paintings, drawings and jewelry at the Richmond Farmer's Market on Friday, September 23 from 12noon - 3:00pm. Partnering with the East Bay Center for Performing Arts, Rubicon aims to celebrate the harvest season with local food, music, and art.

For a map to the market, click here.

3) A huge thanks to the 40+ volunteers during the Week of Caring!

September 12-16 was the United Way of the Bay Area’s Week of Caring - sponsored by Chevron - and over 40 volunteers generously lent their time and skills to Rubicon! Four teams from Chevron and Contra Costa Times painted, stuffed gift bags, labeled envelopes, and prepared shipping materials for our cakes. We are very grateful for their time and energy! Thank you!

To see pictures of their hard work, click here.

4) Participant Profile: Michael McArthur

ImageMichael is a born salesman. He had a great job but lost it due to his drug habit. He became homeless and was not taking care of his young daughter.

He came to Rubicon wanting a second chance. He took our two week intensive employment training to refresh his job skills. And we helped him resolve his child support issues. He quickly found a job doing sales for a local newspaper.

“Rubicon provided the structure I needed to get back on my feet. They gave me hope,” Michael said.

After almost two years at his job, Michael realized that he wanted to use his skills to help people like himself get their lives back on track. He applied for an Employment Specialist job at Rubicon’s Workforce Services. He’s been with Rubicon now 6 months and already helped dozens and dozens of people get jobs. Michael now gives people their second chance.

5) Rubicon Bakery goes national!

You can find Rubicon Bakery in nearly every corner of the United States now! Rubicon Bakery’s marshmallows are now available in Safeway stores across the country and the Williams-Sonoma catalogue (distributed to millions of homes in all 50 states) now carries Rubicon’s Spider Web cake.

Buy a Spider Web cake for your ghosts and ghouls!

6) Look for your paper newsletter – join our mailing list!

Sometimes the old fashioned way is worth doing. We’ve been thinking that a good ole newsletter on real paper with a real stamp will help us reach more people and spread the Rubicon story. So we will be sending our inaugural newsletter via the US Mail later this month. We’ll still send these short e-newsletters monthly and hope to augment them with the ‘hard copy’ newsletter twice a year.

Would you like to receive the newsletter? Send your mailing address – the one with a zip code not the @ - to annieb@rubiconprograms.org.

What does Rubicon do?
We help people who are low-income, homeless, and living with mental disabilities live independent lives by providing jobs, housing, legal services, career development services, mental health counseling, and money management services. We run two social purpose businesses, Rubicon Bakery and Rubicon Landscape Services, and from which 100% of net proceeds support our programs.

Rubicon Programs Inc is 31 years old, has served over 35,000 men and women, has created thousands of jobs, and provided hundreds of homes.