Dear friends!

Has it been 10 Years!
Yes it has!!!

Please join us to mark the Ten Year Anniversary of the Eviction of
Charas Community Center with music, food, friends and a community
speak out!

CHARAS/El Bohio Holiday Party and Community Potluck!
When: Sunday, December 18
12pm – Rally at Tompkins Square Park
12:30pm – Proceeds to CHARAS
Where: 605 East 9th Street (bet. aves. B& C)

Dance, speak out, and help us to create a community center in the
street. One day the developer’s blue wall will come down, and Charas
will be back inside where it belongs.

With a General Assembly and performances by members of Great Small
Works, Hungry March Band, Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Stopping.
The Peoples Mic and kid friendly activities including face painting,
dance, and art making!

Potluck! Bring a dish or an activity to share!

CHARAS served the low-income, activist, and artist communities of
lower east side for over 20 years, providing artist’s space,
performance and gallery space, afterschool programs, workshops,
English classes and meeting space for countless neighborhood
organizations. In 1999, despite a community use restriction &
widespread opposition, the building that housed CHARAS was auctioned
off to private developer Gregg Singer, who immediately moved to evict
them. After a hard fought battle, CHARAS was evicted on December 27,
2001. The building, still zoned for community use, has sat vacant and
derelict ever since. It’s time CHARAS gets their community center
back!

CHARAS/El Bohio Cultural and Community Center was founded in 1965 by
Latino youth leaders of notorious New York City gangs who resolved to
organize to improve the Lower East Side. CHARAS was born from the
awareness of the need for change, namely by addressing the broader
issues impacting the community such as racism, police brutality, the
lack of economic resources, services, quality education and housing.

SPREAD THE WORD!
See you there!
xs