12/26/06

Greetings Invaluable Icarus Project Advocates & Allies,

With the holiday season upon us and New Years fast approaching, we would
like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all of you who have
contributed to and supported The Icarus Project over the years!

If you have received any solace, healing, motivation or home within this
community, and if you are in a position to give back any size cash
donation, we are humbly asking that you please consider doing so now. Or
please pass this request/update along to folks you know who might have
access to monetary means and let them know how this community has
impacted your life. We rely entirely on the support of private
foundations and the generosity of individual, tax-deductible donations
to cover our expenses, and hope you will consider contributing to help
the Icarus Project continue into the future. For information about
making an online donation, please visit
https://site.icarusprojectarchive.org/about-us/donate-to-the-icarus-project

As this is a movement based, mutual aid mental health network we will
not be able to sustain these efforts without your active participation,
unique skill set and shared experiences. There are so many of you doing
this now that we feel it's time to communicate even further some of the
amazing things we've been able to accomplish, as well as give you a
sense of where Icarus on a national housekeeping level is heading in the
year ahead as we create space for more of us to voice our needs, desires
and access to alternatives in our mind/body/communities and beyond.
We're excited for all these successes, and hope you'll share in our
enthusiasm, visioning and growth as we launch into 2007.

2006 has been a year of vibrant growth and fruition. Icarus members
across the country – and even from around the globe – are spreading the
seeds of collective vision and nurturing local connections of caring and
support. We continue to weave a vital community for people alienated
from traditional care, helping isolated people avoid hospitalization,
deal with suicidal feelings, and find expression for art, poetry, music
and dreams. Just a sample of a few emails we've received recently:

"I am a 20 year old female who has been called crazy my whole life; I am
diagnosed with bipolar and ever since I was 5 years old I saw things and
went places that people don't think exist. I want to live my life
without people calling me crazy."

"I have a new found confidence that all that I had suspected to be true
in my isolated location in Africa appears to be true. Thanks again, just
visiting the website had been exceptionally illuminating"

"I am so glad to have discovered like-minded people trying to find a
sane and healthy way to exist in this world, where it is so very hard to
be an open, aware, sensitive creature...."

Over the past year, with a limited budget and small staff, we've
nourished our community network, completed key long-term projects,
strengthened our organizational structure, fulfilled the requirements of
our Ittleson Foundation grant, developed our volunteer base, and laid a
solid bedrock for the future. Our hard work has earned us the dedication
of numerous volunteers and the autonomous partnership of Fountain House,
the founding mental health clubhouse, where we have been offered
technical assistance and the gift of a beautiful office space in midtown
Manhattan.

To give you a snapshot of our progress, we'd like to share some of the
highlights from this year: In early 2006 we initiated our internship
program at New York University, and held a highly successful benefit
concert with Jolie Holland and Bonfire Madigan at the Knitting Factory
in NYC. Soon thereafter we completed and released our collaborative
publication, Friends Make the Best Medicine; A Guide to Creating Mental
Health Support Networks in Our Communities, combining the release with
the standing-room only opening of our second Art Show, entitled Pieces
of Mind; A Celebration of Dangerous Gifts. The show, which was covered
in the NY Non-Profit Press and received a full-page spread in the NY
Daily News, featured over 30 Icarus affiliated artists from across the
country. In October, a team of incredibly dedicated staff and volunteers
(including one from Mexico!) launched a new, open-source version of our
website (currently attracting over 500 unique visitors a day) to provide
us with new interactive tools and greater transparency in finances and
organizing. We spoke at mental health conferences, panels, skillshares,
and festivals ranging from Michigan (Students Cooperation Institute),
Alaska (Governors' Council on Disability), D.C. (Conference on Organized
Resistance), Baltimore (Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy),
Attleboro, MA (Northeast Herbalist Convergence), West Wheelock, VT
(Vermont Activist Skillshare), New Orleans (Katrina relief), and NYU
(radical mental health skillshare with 150 students). We also gave
interviews on WBAI & KALX radio and in the NY Daily News and New York
Times. We also moved into our newly donated office at Fountain House to
distribute outreach materials and the 5th printing of our reader
Navigating the Space, as well as hiring a new part time office and
volunteer coordinator.

As we look to 2007, we are beginning significant new projects: a
curricula of popular education materials to facilitate Icarus Project
workshops and raise mental health awareness; a nation-wide speaking tour
and Icarus gathering for the Fall of 2007; micro-grants to seed local
group activities and a national FM radio show syndicated on the Pacifica
network.

We will not be able to meet all of our goals without your continued
financial support. Now that our grant with The Ittleson Foundation is
over, your generosity is even more important to help us distribute our
publications, invite more people to our web and independent community
organizing networks, offer more talks, skillshares, and workshops, and
provide peer support to the many people who contact us from all over the
world. Please spread the word about The Icarus Project, and consider
making a tax-deductible donation to sustain this alternative, healing
community work. FJC continues to act as our fiscal intermediary in the
interim. Again, for information about making an online donation, please
visit
https://site.icarusprojectarchive.org/about-us/donate-to-the-icarus-project

To make a donation by mail, please send checks of any size made out to:

FJC/The Icarus Project
520 Eighth Avenue, 20th Floor
NY NY 10018

or call FJC directly at 1-888-Give-FJC.

Thanks again for you-- for making it through! We look forward to hearing
from you.

Here's to looking together in the same direction
toward a mad & happy New Year,

The National Icarus Organizing/Housekeeping Collective

Sarah Stalker, Madigan Shive, Ashley McNamara, Will Hall and Sascha Dubrul