Good morning everyone!  My name is Vicki Dolenga, and I am the President of the Southern California Size Acceptance Coalition, based here in San Diego .

We try to break down stereotypes and enlighten others through education and advocacy, as well as establish a sense of community. 

We provide community via social events every other month.  We have outings such as going to movies, minature golfing, water parks, and we plan to go to a mud spa in the near future.  We feel that it is important for us to be seen in public, and be a way for people new to the size acceptance movement to be comfortable in public.

We provide education by speaking at schools in the area, such as Rancho Bernardo High School and San Diego State University.  We also appear on the local news occasionally and have usually been portrayed in a positive light

We provide advocacy through doing activism.  We participated in a cooperative protest with NAAFA LA at a local 24-Hour Fitness to support the efforts of those in San Francisco.  We were incredibly proud of those activists in the Bay Area when we saw the end results of what started with those offensive billboards - it is now ILLEGAL to discriminate against someone on the basis of size in the city of San Francisco.

We got a positive response this past year when we approached the director of San Diego's local hockey team about an offensive routine performed by the mascot the Famous Chicken, where a poster of a naked fat woman was used in a derogatory manner.  I'm pleased to say that the director agreed with the inappropriateness of this routine and told the Chicken that he would not do that in the San Diego Sports Arena, and he recommended that the Chicken also not do it elsewhere.

Now we are tackling a new issue: there is a police officer in Los Angeles who needs our help.  A poster has been put up in the Los Angeles police department with a drawing of a fat man breaking a scale that says "Fat Grows on You" and "No Fat Cops."  Her protest to her supervisors of this poster being up has resulted in her suspension for insubordination.  There will be a hearing in Los Angeles on August 22nd regarding her case, and we need bodies there and letters written.  If you can be there, please do, otherwise, please write a letter.  Please see myself or Marilyn Wann for more information.

If you want more information on SCSAC, please see me - we always welcome new members.  We hope that you enjoy your stay in our beautiful city.

Thank you very much.

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