DO-GOOD DIGEST

Riding high on the wave of recent election success, PUEBLO
supporters and volunteers celebrated the opening of their new Santa
Barbara office last week. Operating their brand of grassroots
neighborhood activism out of La Casa de La Raza’s building since
2003 and the SEIU Local 620 office before that, the nonprofit
organization now calls 114 East Haley Street, Suite E, home. PUEBLO
also opened a Santa Maria office in 2005.

Transition House’s main homeless shelter reopened on Saturday
after a year of reconstruction. Some 40 people – including more
than two dozen children – moved from a temporary Olive Street
shelter into the made-over building on Ortega Street. Volunteers
helped with the move and also helped decorate all of the 16 new
family rooms. Transition House is still fundraising for the $2.6
million project, and is seeking $250,000 to cover a matching grant
from Sara Miller McCune and the SAGE Publications Foundation.
Transition House aims to lead motivated clients permanently out of
poverty.

The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family
planning at the Department of Health and Human Services, a move the
local branch of Planned Parenthood sees as a step in the wrong
direction. Dr. Eric Keroack, a gynecologist, is medical director of
A Woman’s Concern, a nonprofit organization “persuaded that the
crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is
demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality, and adverse to
human health and happiness,” according to its Web site. Santa
Barbara Planned Parenthood’s VP of Public Affairs Christine Lyon
said, “As far as we’re concerned, the appointment of someone who is
anti-birth control and anti-sex education [shows] that this
administration is completely out of step with the American
public.”

Against all odds, the UCSB men’s soccer team shocked the NCAA
tournament last week and secured themselves a spot in the final
Elite 8 of the tourney with a quarterfinal match against
Northwestern this Saturday at Harder Stadium. Despite being
unseeded in the tournament, the Gauchos took out top-ranked
national powerhouse Southern Methodist University by a score of 3-1
last Wednesday, and went on to a dramatic come-from-behind 2-1
victory over Old Dominion University on Saturday.