April 2003
Dear DBF Friends and Supporters,
Here is the first e-newsletter of the Don't Be Fueled! campaign.

OFFICIAL DON'T BE FUELED! CAMPAIGN LAUNCH A SUCCESS!
After months of planning, Mothers for Clean and Safe Vehicles officially launched the Don't Be Fueled! Campaign and petition drive with a rally at Marina Green and a march to the local Chevron station. Speakers included San Francisco supervisor and mayoral candidate Tom Ammiano, former Mayor of Novato Harry Moore, and "Mothers" co-founder Betsy Rosenberg and co-Directors Lynn Fuller and Lauren Klein-Hayes. Press coverage of the event was what every grassroots (or "gasroots") organizer hopes and dreams of: our event was covered on two local television stations and local newspapers. If you missed the Chronicle article about us, you can check it out now:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/14/BA259663.DTL

EVERYONE'S HELP NEEDED WITH THE PETITION DRIVE
The goal of the Don't Be Fueled! petition campaign is to get more people thinking about fuel efficiency and taking action to demand more fuel efficient vehicles from an automobile industry that has committed vast resources to opposing fuel economy increases. It's going to take lots and lots of signatures to persuade automakers that we really mean it! Just signing our petition on-line is a great first step. Downloading and circulating a petition among friends and neighbors and at school and community events helps even more. Just mail them back to us at Don't Be Fueled! P.O. Box 29138, San Francisco, CA 94123-0138.

MOTHERS HAVE BIG PLANS FOR 2003!
In addition to the petition drive, our speakers series, our house parties and our other informal education events and activities, we've come up with four projects that we plan to start work on this year. If we are able to get enough volunteer help and donations, we hope to finish all four this year!
o Mothers' Guide to Clean and Safe Vehicles: What To Buy, What To Rent and What Not To Set Foot In. This will be a brief, mother-written, practical guide to current vehicle models for consumers looking for the safest and cleanest choices for family transportation available now. It will be downloadable from our website and available in print.
o Mothers'Action Guide for Cleaner and Safe Vehicle Fleets. Has your local fire department started rolling around town in gas-guzzling, unsafe Ford Expeditions or GMC Yukons? Ours has. Does your Police Department feel it's necessary to use a 10-mpg SUV to transport a single police dog from Point A to Point B? Ours does. Does your local taxi company zoom around town in dangerous, rollover-prone Ford Explorers or super-polluting Dodge Durangos? Some of ours do. According to Keith Bradsher, author of High & Mighty: SUVs: The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles And How They Got That Way, this is a nationwide trend with fleet vehicles. Meanwhile, a few enlightened cities and counties across America have chosen the Toyota Prius for police and fire fleets, and feel this is the patriotic thing to do - unfortunately, they sometimes had to buck "buy American" rules to make this patriotic gesture in favor of energy independence. We'll get to the bottom of the SUV boom in fleets here in the Bay Area and share what we've learned with our friends and supporters across the country.
o Informational Video on Issues and Trends in Vehicle Safety and Fuel Economy. We'd like to produce a short, informational video consisting mostly of clips from existing documentaries on these issues, interspersed with interviews of Don't Be Fueled mothers and other supporters, and government graphs and statistics. We'll use this video at our house parties and other events.
o Education Curriculum for High School Students. The recent boom in gas-guzzling SUVs and large pick-ups has happened in one generation of drivers. A major education effort is needed to stop this trend from becoming a multi-generational phenomenon, with dire consequences for the environment and America's national security. We'd like to develop an effective, youth-centered curriculum that explores vehicle choices with young people and educates them about the consequences of choosing an unsafe, gas-guzzling vehicle.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
We are an all-volunteer effort. It will take a lot of volunteer hours to accomplish all this. We are actively recruiting members for our Events and Outreach, Government, Media, Education, and Fundraising committees. Please contact us if you'd like to help. You don't need to be in the Bay Area or even in California to help.

DONATIONS NEEDED!
We have no paid staff and do what we do entirely as volunteers. We feel extremely fortunate to have secured a small office in the beautiful Thoreau Center on Sustainability in San Francisco's Presidio National Park. While our financial needs are modest in relation to our goals, we do need a steady stream of contributions to sustain our efforts. Your donation of $25, $50 or $100 help us achieve a secure financial footing for our fiscally modest operation whose ambition is to change the world!! If possible, please consider making monthly contributions for several months. Please make checks payable to: Public Media Center/Don't Be Fueled!, 466 Green St., San Francisco, CA 94133-4067.
We also need the following in-kind donations: a bookshelf for our office, airpots for making tea and coffee at our various events, copying service or Kinko's pre-paid cards, and recycled office paper and envelopes.
All donations are tax-deductible under § 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. All donations will be acknowledged for tax purposes.
Thanks for your support! To get involved, please contact us or call us at 415-561-2165.

Lynn Fuller Betsy Rosenberg
Co-Director Co-Founder