News 2 the Racquette December 02, 2011 www.theracquette.com Franz Galoso Contributing Writer Activists affiliated with the Oc- cupy Wall Street movement cele- brated Thanksgiving last Thursday despite increased pressure from authorities. Thanksgiving-style fare was distributed at New York City's Zucotti park, where the Occupy Wall Street movement started more than two months ago. The move- ment began with camp-in protests on Sept. 17 to protest socioeconom- ic inequality in the United States. Observers and activists alike have been questioning the movement's long term prospects ever since city authorities prohibited overnight camping and evicted campers two weeks ago, severely curtailing the protesters’ ability to mass organize. Despite the recent eviction, movement activists celebrated a 'Thanksgiving Feast' by serving prepared meals to activists last Thursday. While some of the meals were prepared by activists and vol- unteers, most appeared to have been either donated by local restaurants or purchased with donated funds. One local restaurant, Dallas BBQ, seemed to donate the vast major- ity of the food at the site. Occupy staff indicated that Dallas BBQ was owned by an Egyptian family who, in light of similar protests in Egypt, was supportive of the Occupy Wal- street movement. "I work for volunteer services,” said Alex Borders, a server at the feast. "My function is to ensure there is enough staff coverage here inside the park." Borders, who has been with the movement for 32 days, explained some of the logis- tics of organizing the Thanksgiving dinner without the organizational benefits of a permanent campsite: "[We organize] through the inter- net, email, and a volunteer data- base. Our Harlem location that's opening up in the second week of December will offer volunteer ser- vices for Occupy Wall Street." The Harlem location will open in office space donated to the Occupy move- ment. Most of the protesters at Zucotti on Thanksgiving seemed to be ei- ther staff or out-of-towners. “The camping prohibition has damaged us a little bit.” said Ross, an out-of towner who had been traveling between Occupy Detroit and Occupy Wall Street. “We don't have one space where we can all come together and share our ideas or organize. There's a number of spaces off-site: we have office spaces, meeting spaces. We have some information groups, special- ists - they're our point of contact between us, and what's going on off-site.” "There's a lot of empty business spaces here in the financial dis- trict. Many have donated the empty space to us. Many churches are helping to house us. They broke us up in Zucotti Park but it has forced us to expand to seven or eight loca- tions." Shortly after food service began, an Occupier announced that the food distribution effort had to be moved to the sidewalk in order to comply with Zucotti park regula- tions. The food was moved to the adjoining sidewalk. "This is a public park, we're doing something really beautiful. We are giving food to people who are in need on Thanksgiving. The police are asking us to move and people comply because they're so afraid.” said Sebastian, a protes- tor who worked with the homeless in Portland, Maine. “I'm here to protest that sort of treatment. On every turn there's a private busi- ness, even churches, people who you really think should be in sup- port who aren’t. The same people who are always trying to clean up their appearances. The poor are not something these people want to see. I slept in this spot for five weeks until the police told us to get out." "A lot of people have come down for the day, they don't under- stand how it works with authority and you have to stand up to it. All the authorities have to do is find one person who will be kind of like 'yeah guys, we got to get the food out of here,' and then the police have got power over us." Sebastian went on to explain the difficulties out-of-towners faced after the eviction. "A lot of us are staying at private residences and friends’ houses. People are sleep- ing in churches, moving around, trying to make themselves space." When asked if he thought the evic- tion has hurt the movement, he said, "There's no way to tell. It's too early. If the public had just seen what they did to us that night things would be very different." Occupy movement celebrates Thanksgiving Franz Galoso Occupiers hand out food on Thanksgiving. Ben Houck Publisher To give back to the community this Christ- mas season, the Potsdam Video Gaming Club hosted a video game auction on Nov. 28. The Potsdam gaming community was en- couraged to bring gaming paraphernalia to be auctioned off, as well as spare cash to buy lightly used games and gear as gifts for its loved ones this season. The proceeds of the auction went to Child’s Play, a charity that has been dedicated to im- proving the lives of children with toys and games in over 70 hospitals worldwide. “One of our founding members, Connor Adams, introduced the group to Child’s Play when we started the auction three years ago,” said PVGC President James Nachamkin. “Supporting this charity makes sense given the mission of the club.” PVGC has put on the auction for four years running and it only continues to get bigger. As the fourth annual video game auction, this year’s filled the Fireside Lounge in the Barrington Student Union as the aunctioneer Bill Kline, Vice President of PVGC, tempted student and community bidders to purchase gifts and donate money for charity. The auction featured just over 50 items in- cluding games, online subscriptions, control- lers and trading cards that raised $383. The highest bid item was a vintage Pokemon Red cartridge, originally marketed for the Nin- tendo Gameboy. It sold at $42. The auction sold everything from vintage classics like “Roller Coaster Tycoon” and “Goldeneye” to recent titles like “Batman Arkham City.” The crowd was cheerful, and was sure to add humorous nerdy video game banter to further sell the item up for bid. “I’m just really amazed at the generosity of everyone, coming together to raise money for a great cause,” added Kline. For more information on the Potsdam Video Gaming Club, contact James Nacham- kin via email at [email protected], or visit the Potsdam Video Gaming Club Face- book page. PVGC games for charity For more Occupy Wall Street coverage, check out theRacquette.com