Help us raise $25,000 this year!

Help us raise $25,000 to lower costs of the paper for vendors!

How will your donation go toward bettering the lives of people experiencing homelessness and poverty? Currently, vendors pay 30 cents for the newspaper, and sell it in the community for $1 dollar. That’s a 70% profit from each newspaper sold.

In 2008, we hope to lower the cost of the newspaper for vendors to 25 cents, giving vendors a 75% profit from each paper sold. That’s up to $100 dollars a month for individuals selling the newspaper, and nearly $1,200 more a year that vendors will have to improve their lives.

Not to mention the countless relationships that are developed and built with your local neighborhood vendor. Part of what makes Street Roots special is the relationships built between people across class lines. The self-confidence and self-worth established through those relationships are immeasurable.

In 2007, Street Roots celebrated putting more than $1 million dollars into the hands of people experiencing homelessness and poverty since our inception in December 1998.

Last year, Street Roots received more individual donations from people like you than ever before. Your donations went to help Street Roots empower more than 15 individuals to gain stable housing. With your help we also updated our archaic technology, created an advisory panel and editorial committee, while offering vendors additional sales items. Those items included bumper stickers and the popular “Housing is a human right” post-cards and buttons. Those additional sales items gave vendors an opportunity to make money and build awareness about Street Roots and the human rights of poor people.

This year your donation will not only go towards lowering the cost of the newspaper for vendors, but will also go toward developing a new sales training video for vendors, providing additional sales items, providing freshwater, hot coffee, and a warm place to congregate in the office. All while providing the dignity people deserve.

Your donation will also go towards helping Street Roots obtain a digital vendor data base to better track individual sales and help vendor store important personal records. We will also be working to develop on-line fundraising and advocacy programs that better serve readers and supporters.

Vendors can’t be successful without a quality newspaper to sell. Your donation will also help the newspaper maintain four additional pages of local, national, and international news and a new vendor page exploring the unique stories of the people who sell the newspaper. Street Roots will also be doing a redesign in the summer of 2008 and looking toward a weekly publication in 2009.

We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without your generous support. We thank you for the consideration and for your dedication to the organization. From all of us at Street Roots, we thank you for your support.

Thank you for your support!

Donate now!