Casa de Luz is in Peril! Can you go downtown tonight?
"Whether Casa de Luz closes or stays open is decided this evening (Wednesday, 9-26-2012) at City Hall on Caesar Chavez Dr. The Building and Standards Commission will make a binding decision tonight at 6:30, Room 1101, 301 West 2nd Street. This is a public meeting. You and everyone that has an interest in keeping Casa de Luz open is invited to attend."
Considering how many restaurants are downtown with no parking other than street parking, I don't understand why they can close the center. But that's what is at stake. Here's what I wrote as I was heading out of serious illness, back in February of 2011. It was addressed to the Austin City Council, as well as there being a variant version for why PARD (Parks & Recreation Department) should join with Casa to beautify and improve the area.
I have meals on my card, and I want to use them at leisure! Thanks to Casa, who had bullet points out so a brain-fogged (at that time) woman could write this letter of protest.
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February 14, 2011
To mayor and city council:
This category is parks, neighborhoods, zoning, environmental, small business, nonprofit -- this is Casa de Luz.
Two years ago, I was dying from catastrophic illness. Only discovering the macrobiotic way of healing through dietary moderation has saved my life. Now, slowly, I am rebuilding that life, struggling to get back to the self-employed business owner I once was. Part of the reason I remained in Austin was because I was convinced that I would find no healing anywhere else I could afford to live. I would find only enduring until an early death.
Casa de Luz has been an integral part of my healing process. I have learned much about cooking macrobiotically from the employees and community at Casa. I know, on weeks when I feel awful and cannot muster the strength to cook healthy, minimally processed meals for myself, I can go to Casa and get that food. When I finally am able to work again, I am counting on Casa as a way to interject variety and a guaranteed healthy meal into my weekly food rotation.
To quote Chad Evans, Casa’s general manager: “Perhaps it would be interesting for them [the city council and mayor] to find out that Austin has a non-profit organization serving nearly 100,000 organic healing meals per year at deep discount to serve the overall public good. Dining at Casa de Luz can change one's life. Carefully crafted and minimally processed meals help people conquer catastrophic illness. It's a choice to participate in a shifting of paradigm.”
Casa is part of a building wave of preventing major disease and chronic conditions through healthy eating. It has changed my life and helped me point others along the path to health. Please don’t take the Casa de Luz dining hall and community away from us. It has taken 20 years to build that community. Help them come up with a parking solution. Help PARD recognize that they would be excellent partners in the beautification and maintenance of the parks and walking city we want Austin to become.
Casa de Luz is the kind of grassroots place the city council always says they want to blossom here. Well, they (Casa) took root and are blooming. Let’s encourage the plant to continue to bloom and grow - not kill the green growth where it flourishes.
Thank you --
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Considering how many restaurants are downtown with no parking other than street parking, I don't understand why they can close the center. But that's what is at stake. Here's what I wrote as I was heading out of serious illness, back in February of 2011. It was addressed to the Austin City Council, as well as there being a variant version for why PARD (Parks & Recreation Department) should join with Casa to beautify and improve the area.
I have meals on my card, and I want to use them at leisure! Thanks to Casa, who had bullet points out so a brain-fogged (at that time) woman could write this letter of protest.
********
February 14, 2011
To mayor and city council:
This category is parks, neighborhoods, zoning, environmental, small business, nonprofit -- this is Casa de Luz.
Two years ago, I was dying from catastrophic illness. Only discovering the macrobiotic way of healing through dietary moderation has saved my life. Now, slowly, I am rebuilding that life, struggling to get back to the self-employed business owner I once was. Part of the reason I remained in Austin was because I was convinced that I would find no healing anywhere else I could afford to live. I would find only enduring until an early death.
Casa de Luz has been an integral part of my healing process. I have learned much about cooking macrobiotically from the employees and community at Casa. I know, on weeks when I feel awful and cannot muster the strength to cook healthy, minimally processed meals for myself, I can go to Casa and get that food. When I finally am able to work again, I am counting on Casa as a way to interject variety and a guaranteed healthy meal into my weekly food rotation.
To quote Chad Evans, Casa’s general manager: “Perhaps it would be interesting for them [the city council and mayor] to find out that Austin has a non-profit organization serving nearly 100,000 organic healing meals per year at deep discount to serve the overall public good. Dining at Casa de Luz can change one's life. Carefully crafted and minimally processed meals help people conquer catastrophic illness. It's a choice to participate in a shifting of paradigm.”
Casa is part of a building wave of preventing major disease and chronic conditions through healthy eating. It has changed my life and helped me point others along the path to health. Please don’t take the Casa de Luz dining hall and community away from us. It has taken 20 years to build that community. Help them come up with a parking solution. Help PARD recognize that they would be excellent partners in the beautification and maintenance of the parks and walking city we want Austin to become.
Casa de Luz is the kind of grassroots place the city council always says they want to blossom here. Well, they (Casa) took root and are blooming. Let’s encourage the plant to continue to bloom and grow - not kill the green growth where it flourishes.
Thank you --
********