Hey Garden(er)s!

Did May feel like it was never going to end, or was that just me? Anywho, lets wrap up the last week of this long ass month with some new events, and some free COVID tests!

Are you new to Garden or the Gather.Town platform? Looking to make new friends or meet new people but maybe you're feeling a little shy? Check out my latest blog post, three ways to meet new people in Garden!

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New Events

⏲️Our events are typically listed in Pacific Standard Time (PST). Need help converting PST to your time zone? Check out this handy WorldTimeBuddy clock!

📌Need some help learning how to navigate Garden/Gather? Come to another session of our Open Orientation on Friday, May 31st at 4pm PST and get your Garden & Gather questions answered.

🥳 Save the date & RSVP for Summer Solstice: June 22nd-June 23rd. Come celebrate the longest day of the year with us in Garden while we explore, learn and party it up for a continuous 24 hours! If you'd like to volunteer a political education workshop, a writing session, a performance, a DJ set, host an event, or lead any other activity, check out the Summer Solstice sign up form and fill it out by June 1st!

🫂Chronic Illness and Long Covid Support Group is starting on Thursday June 6th & 20th at 5:30pm-7:30pm PST with Chanelle! Navigating everything that comes with chronic illness can be difficult - from managing symptoms to experiencing grief over missing your pre-illness life. This will be a peer support space where we can share our feelings about living with any chronic/long-term illness, including long Covid, during an ongoing pandemic. RSVP via the calendar on the visit page.

📷 Fab will be hosting her Meme Night on Thursday June 6th from 4pm-6pm PST. Bring a couple of your favorite meme’s and their backstory. We will be sharing screens to show youtube videos, gifs, and any other forms of media to showcase memes.

🩰Want to learn ballet in a way that is anti-racist, accessible, body positive, queer, and covid conscious? Saturday, June 29th is officially Day of Ballet in Garden, hosted by Ashley from 11am to 3pm PST. 
  
Tentative schedule:
11am - 11:15am PST: Arms-only/sitting ballet class
11:20 - 12:20pm PST: Beginner full ballet class with choreography
12:30 - 1:30pm PST: Some form of self-defense movement class/discussion
2-3pm PST: Lecture/discussion and/or movie screening relating to BIPOC ballet histories and experiences. RSVP via the calendar on the visit page.

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Ongoing events in Garden

🫁 Want to increase your lung capacity? Come to Breathing with BJ in the Knowledge Nursery! Every weekday at 9am PST.

🎥 Name That Movie (Night!) is Wednesday at 5:30pm PST! This week's movie is a musical about a Black teenager who discovers rock music in the 1970's and flees the suburbs of LA for a life on the road through Europe. Coleman Domingo plays one of the leading characters and is at his absolute best. Have a good guess? Come thru and find out!

🪷 Stretch it out as Caroline leads us in another weekly afternoon Yoga sesh this Friday at 2:15pm PST by streaming a yoga video from YouTube and following along. Videos will be between 25-45 minutes long between easy to moderate pace. Drop ins are always welcome! RSVP via the calendar on the visit page.

💻 Do you work from home and sometimes feel a little too isolated from others? Come Co-Work with us in Garden! We are a 24/7 drop in space for folks to join to co-work silently, listen to music, play a game or chat amongst each other in the chat box.

😷 Hang out, chill and play games with Black folks who take COVID precautions at the Bonfire in Garden! Every 3rd Saturday of the month from 5-8pm PST. RSVP via the calendar on the visit page.

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Opportunities

🎨The Farm Margaret River has an international funded residency program for visual artists that is hosted in Western Australia. Applications are due June 2nd at 2am PST (5pm June 2nd AWST).

🏳️‍🌈Are you a US based LGBTQ+ small business owner? Check out this $25,000 National Pride Grant from Founders First due Tuesday May 28th!

🌍Are you witnessing a large scale event that requires immediate and urgent action? Urgent Action Fund supports women/non-binary/trans activists globally with two rapid response grant options of up to $8,000: Security Grants and Opportunity Grants. Apply year round.

✊🏾Reminder: Peoples Hub is having a Resisting Covid Denialism Community of Practice series that starts at the end of this month! Register & learn more information about it here.

🎈 We are looking to open Garden up to community orgs who would like to share space with us here. If you are part of an org that may benefit from office/event space here, please email info@meetatgarden.com

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Announcements & Actions

📝 AYA is an art collective founded in 2023 with the intention of promoting, connecting, and collaborating with Black queer and trans artists around the world. They are planning a liberation focused festival in early August that will be offered both online and in-person (in the DMV area) and want to hear from you to determine how to curate the space. Fill out their feedback form and be entered to be randomly selected and win $20!

🍉Centering Palestine has a zoom every Tuesday at 5pm PST, along with other resources to show up for Palestine available here.

🧪We came across a donation of free rapid antigen tests to distribute to our Garden community. We can send tests out to 10 Garden(er)s at no cost. Priority will be given to: low income, disabled and or immunocompromised people, those living in multiple person households and those who have to work in person. Fill out our form if you're interested in receiving free COVID tests.

That's all for now, until next our avatars meet!

😸Gata

PS: Have a one-time-event or a recurring event and need a place to host? Email us at info@meetatgarden.com!

Garden is a free 24/7 space, but it does cost money for us to maintain it on GatherTown. If you'd like to donate to this work, consider throwing some money in the pot here. To send donations directly through our 501c3 fiscal sponsor, email us!