Warm Cookies of the Revolution invites you to share food for thought in Denver tonight

Mary Grace Legg

Game night at the Buntport Theater.

The first gathering was a game night at Buntport last month, where close to a hundred people played board games and talked; Weissman also provided background on the organization, as well as cookies from the Santa Fe Cooking Company and WaterCourse Foods. "The hope there was to show, 'Look, you can come to the fun thing, it's game night.' But when we do it, we'll have a different topic each time. And it's not forced, it doesn't have to be a horrible lecture," Weissman says.

Tonight's gathering starts at 6:30 p.m. at Buntport . "Come write a letter," Weissman urges. "It can be a love letter, it can be a letter to your family, it can be a letter to no one, a letter to your future self, anything you want."

And it's important that in these days of e-mail, the letter be handwritten. "Everyone loves getting mail -- real mail. That is always the first thing you'll open and you're so excited," he says. "Sitting down and thinking about something or someone for a certain amount of time, we don't do that anymore, at all."

Letters to state representatives, city councilmembers, editors and even prisoners will be encouraged. Guests speakers will be there to talk about the importance of writing letters to the editor as well as public officials. Although some supplies will be provided (along with the cookies and milk), attendees are encouraged to bring paper, envelopes, postcards and pens. All the letters will be mailed out tomorrow.

Other Warm Cookies events over the next year will include book clubs, live talk shows and inter-generational programs. "We're told that the problems in our community are super complex," Weissman says. "I think that's a poisonous idea." Although he knows that experts are crucial in dealing with complicated civic issues -- city sewage systems, for example -- he thinks the community should also be part of the conversation: "That system of having techno-bureaucrats run things, it doesn't work because the same people get shafted over and over."

Community input is also crucial to keeping organizations like Warm Cookies alive. "If it's just up to me and the ten people I have on the initial board, then this idea is going to die," Weissman explains. "It needs buy-in from as many different people and organizations, from as diverse a range of people as possible. Or else it's going to end up just being a slice if the community."

For more information, visit the Warm Cookies Facebook page, or e-mail info@warmcookiesoftherevolution.org.

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