To our friends, allies, advocates, and advisors,

We are writing to share with you the good news that things have never been better at the Beehive! We have a truly outstanding crew of Bees - a dream hive, really! - and are feverishly buzzing round-the-clock… on the verge of spawning TWO massive new graphics campaigns.

That said, it is with urgency that we explain our situation: we are in dire need of the minimal funds necessary to see us through this final sprint.  Read on to hear about the exciting happenings at the Hive, and please consider donating to support us in this exciting moment in the evolution of our work.

MESOAMERICA RESISTE is a project that has morphed over the past four years into an illustration of epic proportion, biological accuracy, and lush complexity that is nearly done having its way with us! And in tandem on our (oversized) operating tables is a colossus of imagery set in motion: a team of nine bees are at full-tilt co-creating a COAL GRAPHIC CAMPAIGN addressing destructive forms of surface mining and the impacts of worldwide addiction to cheap, non-sustainable energy.
 
They’re going to be SO ferocious and beautiful!! We absolutely can’t wait for y’all to see them! None of these impossible labors of love and struggle would be evolving without the INCREDIBLE outpouring of support, love letters, honey, and volunteer bee hours from so many of you! 

THANK YOU SO MUCH for keeping our fires stoked, facts straight and bellies full as we pour ourselves and the story-pollen we’ve collected into creating these images that will be put to immediate and joyous use around the world.  We are truly honored to be doing this work, feel extremely lucky to be agents of crystallizing dangerous truths into potent organizing tools, and are consistently humbled by not only the painstaking process of it all, but the consistent enthusiasm of our audiences.  We just can’t be thankful enough… so we work even harder, fueled by our gratitude.

And so, it is with great pleasure that we are ready to begin sharing our work in progress with you in our new gallery (LINK)! Please keep checking over the coming months, as we churn out, bit by bit, the finished imagery…

The Hive is currently housing 13 hard working, all volunteer Bees that are buzzing non-stop for the next four months to complete both of these intricate graphics. But we are faced with expenses that are threatening to pull many of us away to fundraise for small donations on the road, causing the projects to ONCE AGAIN take MANY more months than necessary. 

We are presently facing the following costs, with no clear inflow of honey in sight:
$1,000 for food/month
$3,000 for housing, offices, studios, etc./month
Total needed for basic expenses: $12,000.

As well as two upcoming print runs:
$8,000 for our Coal/Climate Change Campaign
$10,000 for our Mesoamerica Campaign

It is in this crucial and exciting moment (from now until October) that we are asking for help to meet our basic expenses, that we may give you our very best work in the most timely fashion! (Really, we’re quite screwed… Please, please help if you can!)

We’d like to take a moment to tell you about a couple of our recent accomplishments:

---This past year, we launched Polinizaciones, an immensely successful collaboration between the Beehive and groups in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador & Panama, which has been widely distributing and facilitating workshops with the FTAA and Plan Colombia posters to the many hundreds of communities whose first-hand stories are portrayed in the graphics. Many fascinating stories await you on the Polinizaciones blog!

---On the home front, Maine-based Bees and volunteers from around the country recently completed six years of restoration work on the Machias Valley Grange Hall, now a cultural and community center on the National Registry of Historic Places and a recipient of Maine’s prestigious Annual Preservation Excellence Award for 2007. So many THANKS and CONGRATULATIONS to all the volunteers who saw this project through to the finish line! The Grange is now hosting a wide range of free community events for children and adults, from weekly kid’s movies and mending parties, to super popular open mic nights. Currently on display at the grange is a photographic documentary entitled Farm Workers Feed Us All, exhibiting issues affecting migrant workers in our county.

At every level, our work is growing in strength and vision, and with your support, this growth can continue on its wildly motivated path! NOW is a very critical time to support the Beehive Collective by making a donation that will help us through this last stretch of monumental creative effort!

IF YOU COULD MAKE A DONATION OF $500, $100, $50, OR EVEN $20 (or place an order for a custom printed banner for your school or organization!), IT WOULD MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN HELPING US GET THESE IMPORTANT ORGANIZING TOOLS INTO THE HANDS OF EAGER AUDIENCES WORLDWIDE!

with immense gratitude and determined solidarity,
~the bees~