Organizing page for **March 18th mini-SERC Somerville**.
[DS4SI](http://www.ds4si.org/interventions/serc) wants to host 5-15 SERCs in the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. In support of this, our (Parts & Crafts and Public Lab's) goal is to host two events in Somerville between now and May -- a trial run on Saturday March 18, at Parts and Crafts, the second in early May, location TBD, as a more evolved version. We would love you to be a part of it!
Interested in helping us plan? March 18 is a trial run -- we're going to throw a bunch of stuff against the wall and see what sticks. Want to help us put it all together? Email contact@partsandcrafts.org
Mark your calendars!
> SERC 1: Saturday March 18
> 10-4 pm with pizza to follow
> 577 Somerville Ave, Somerville (at [Parts & Crafts](http://partsandcrafts.org))
## What's a SERC?
> In emergencies like hurricanes and tsunamis, emergency response centers exist to coordinate evacuations or provide services like temporary housing, food, and water. We want you to join us in re-imagining response centers to take on the real and pressing social emergency that we are facing today. (via [DS4SI](http://www.ds4si.org/interventions/serc))
> **Social Emergency Response Centers** (SERCs) will be temporary, emergent, and creative pop-up spaces co-led by activists and artists around the US. They will function as both an artistic gesture and a practical solution. As such we will need to figure out the balance, like how will we feed people--and their hunger for justice? How will we create a shelter--where it's safe to bring your whole damn self? What will reconstruction--of civil society--look like? Here is a rough diagram that we’re excited to have people add to:
Here's a diagram to help you imagine it!
[](https://publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/019/738/original/tmp_10143-static1.squarespace.com-653398842.jpg)
## Planning
Interested in being a part of it? Here's how!
**Run a workshop.** Workshops are food for the brain, body, or soul, and can be on anything from screenprinting to Standing Rock, decompression strategies to anti-displacement. What do you want to learn? What do you want to share?
**Build a cohort.** This is an opportunity for us to strengthen our collaboration muscles and build a cohort of people -- Somervillians, artists, old timers, crafty folks, educators, hipsters, and activists of all stripes -- to reach across boundaries and help to lift each other up.
**Intergenerational.** If you've been around the block and have seen all this a million times -- or if you're just-recently-not-a-kid and are terrified out of your mind - we want your perspective and your voice. CITS, Full Circle cohort, youth leaders, and youth organizers: you especially are invited!
**Somerville local** (and Cambridge, and Medford, and Arlington, you too!) Occupation, privatization, state-sanctioned violence, displacement, and disruption of everyday life: Trump didn't invent these things. Likewise, strategies for creative resistance, non-engagement, and grassroots solution have been happening right here at home for decades.
## Sessions
We're looking for people to organize sessions for the day, from one to two hours each. We're hoping to have a session of each of these types running at a time:
* 1 crafts-oriented
* 1 "learn about this"
* 1 brainstorm-oriented
* downtime -- for "taking a break"
* 1 for young people (various ages)
* accessible to teens, best facilitated by teens (any good workshop should be accessible)
### Currently planned sessions
* Know Your Rights workshop - by Cora V
* Drum painting - by Katie Gradowski
* Timelapse Pollution Monitoring Kit - by Jeff (@warren)
* ...more coming very soon, see below for ideas listing
### Submit a session
****
## Session ideas