Needed: Board Members for Local Grassroots Peace and Justice Organization

Location: Ashland, OR

To apply: Email board@peacehouse.net with a short note about your interest and a resume. 

Applications will be reviewed at our regular monthly meeting (currently scheduled for the third Tuesday of the month), after which we will reach out to applicants about next steps and a chance to meet the current board in-person.

Deadline: Rolling. Looking for new members to begin Fall 2026. 

About Peace House:

Born out of the Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s, Peace House has become a home for many kinds of action to make a more peaceful world. Our mission is to model the power of compassion for creating peace, to educate about the consequences of militarism, and to equip our community to organize, advocate, and take action together for peace and justice. We do this both through our own programs and through providing fiscal sponsorship to new or smaller community efforts in need of support.

Some of our current projects:

Uncle Food’s Diner – A weekly, free hot meal program open to all, regularly serving over 100 meals each week.

Rogue Liberation Library – A volunteer-driven project providing free books to prisoners in prisons around the country

Movement Building Program – Regular workshop series using a popular education frame teaching organizing and campaigning skills and analysis. Recent workshops have focused on noncooperation strategies against authoritarianism, nonviolent direct action, and corporate pressure campaigns against collaborators with ICE.

We are based in Ashland, OR and the majority of our work is done in-person in SW Oregon.

About the Role:

The board provides strategic leadership, governance, and works to build the organization’s resources.

We are looking for board members who are looking to take an active part in our work. Expectations include:

• Attending monthly board meetings
• Attending and helping plan and promote special events
• Fundraising and making a personal contribution to the organization
• Participating in board development
• Attending 1-2 special board meetings or retreats per year
• Participating in ad-hoc committees as needed

Terms are for two years and may be extended.

We are especially interested in individuals with the following skills:

• Nonprofit financial management
• Fundraising
• Compliance and risk assessments
• Team building
• Facilitation, especially in groups with a consensus or more collective decision-making process

For individuals excited about our mission, there may be the opportunity for training and professional development to help build out skills useful for the board.

Tuesday kitchen help at Uncle Food’s Diner

Peace House coordinates a weekly hot meal on Tuesdays, and we need more hands in the kitchen! Flexible shifts from 10am-3pm. We cook at First Methodist near Laurel and N. Main. Come work with our fabulous chef, David Jimenez, and the rest of our fun crew. Reach out to Meg (meg@peacehouse.net) or call the office at 541.482.9625 for more info.

Volunteer with Ashland Food Angels

Food Angels has been collecting and donating produce and other perishable food items to Uncle Food’s since 1996, as well as helping to provide an abundance of food items to the Ashland Food Bank and food banks in Talent and Phoenix. 

The project operates daily, picking up food each morning and evening. Shifts are usually 2-3 hours. Although it helps to be able to lift 20 to 40 pounds, there are also jobs which require no lifting. Consistent weekly help is greatly appreciated, but even an hour or so once in a while would be helpful. It’s a wonderful and loving group that gives their time and energies to this project,To learn more, email Pamala Joy at ashlandfoodangels@gmail.com or call 458.246.7489.

On May 1st, workers, businesses, and schools are saying: No Work. No shopping. No school.

Will you join us?

Here’s what you can do:

1. Attend the May Day Rally in Medford

PCUN, Unite Oregon, Unete, Indivisible, local unions, and many many others are hosting a May Day rally in Medford:

May 1 from 4-7pm at Veterans Memorial Park next to the Medford Armory 

Live music

Food by Jobs with Justice

Local Union speakers in Spanish and English

2. Pledge to Strike.

Whether you’re a student, a worker, or an everyday person who does your shopping on Fridays, you can demonstrate the economic and social power we hold collectively by withdrawing your participation on that day. Stay home—or go out and volunteer instead. Plan your shopping for another day. Let our collective presence be felt.

This call for a national strike on May Day coincides with our statewide Day Without an Immigrant. In addition to encouraging a strike, Oregon for All, PCUN, and many others are hosting a lobby day in Salem for those able to attend.

Will you be striking on May 1st? Sign the pledge form from Unete to show your commitment.

3. Participate in outreach to local businesses.

On January 23rd, many businesses around the country shut their doors, closed early, or took part in solidarity actions in support of the community in Minnesota after the killing of Renee Good by federal agents.

May 1st, the business community has another chance to show that they stand in support of their customers, workers, and neighbors, and against the billionaires and authoritarians using our taxes to fuel war and terrorize everyday people via violent tactics from ICE and CBP.

Ask your favorite businesses to show their support using the BUSINESS OUTREACH TOOLKIT.

Are you a business or independent contractor that’s participating in the May Day strike? Let us know here and we’ll add your name to the list below so that community members can see you care.

Think your business is too small to meaningfully participate? The folks at The Drift Collective are engaged in conversations to help other small business owners think through what it means to show up in this moment. Check out their Instagram and reach out for more info:

And here’s how businesses in Southern Oregon are showing solidarity:

-The Drift Collective – Cash Only & Music by Los Mapaches + Chinga La Migra Live Screen Printing

-Luna Love Plant Show – Cash Only & Donating 20% of sales to the “Protect Oregon” organization @protectoregon 

-Loam+Black – Cash Only & Talking w/ All Customers About May Day Strike

-Fiit & Flow Fitness Studio – Rewarding members participating in May Day solidarity actions with points towards Spring Challenge competition. 

-Websters – Participating, Exact Details To Be Confirmed

-Treehouse Books – Participating, Exact Details To Be Confirmed

More to come!

See all the businesses taking action around the state: https://www.daywithoutanimmigrantor.com/businesses

Know of a small business taking action? Tell us about it.

We’re happy to announce our next set of trainings for April and May, following on our Justice is Love in Public weekend in February.

Please RSVP to tell us which trainings you’d like to attend and we’ll send more details to you.

Workshops are free and open to all but please consider making a donation to support this programming. Peace House relies on community support to do this work.

Send questions to meg@peacehouse.net.

Thursday, April 16th, 3-5pm – Strike Readiness Training
We’ll gather in person to participate in a national training on preparing for strikes, then debrief together and talk about plans for upcoming May 1st strikes.


Wednesday, May 13th, 6:30-8:30pm – HOPE-PV: Elections Focus
Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence is a framework being used around the country to push back against authoritarian violence. We’ll learn the basics of this framework and then put it into practice with a focus on elections, working through scenarios in which violence or threats of violence attempt to disrupt our right to vote and govern ourselves.


Wednesday, May 27th, 6-8pm – Noncooperation 101
Words like authoritarianism, fascism, and autocracy are all being thrown around a lot these days. How does this moment in the U.S. compare to authoritarian take-overs in other places? We’ll share about the current authoritarian threat, then share stories of noncooperation and how nonviolent noncooperation has been used to push back against anti-democratic forces.


Saturday, May 30th, 10am-3pm – Economic Noncooperation Against ICE and Militarism
Rescheduled from February. Boycotts, strikes, tax resistance — these are just a few of the nonviolent noncooperation tactics movements have used around the world to disrupt authoritarian forces. We’ll break down the mechanics of these tactics and look at how they might be deployed against the violent excesses of ICE and the U.S. military in our current moment. We’ll share stories from global movements, review concepts like the pillars of support and basics of campaign strategy, then dig into creative campaign design ourselves to see what actions we might take together here in Oregon.

Pope Leo called for peace in his remarks on Easter Sunday and reiterated them again in response to President Trump’s threat that a ‘whole civilization might die tonight,’ made the morning of Tuesday, April 7th.

How do we respond on a day like this, when mass destruction of human life is tossed around so flagrantly?

We say: show your love for life in whatever manner feels compelling and urgent.

We’ve already heard that individuals are gathering on the Ashland Plaza this afternoon to speak out.

We also know that some of us are flooding the lines of the White House – (202) 456-1111 – before 5pm ET.

Some of us are showing up to continue feeding our neighbors, like we will be today at Uncle Food’s Diner, and advocating for their right to exist in public, later today at Ashland City Council.

Some of us will figure out how to provide aid to those already harmed and displaced.

Some of us will finally take the step to stop funding war, this week before Tax Day, joining the War Tax Resisters League and others in refusing to hand over our money to systems of endless bloodshed.

Some of us will gather and process and plan with those closest to us to figure out what kind of action we’ve been too scared to take before and finally step to take it.

Some of us will sit in quiet and allow the anxiety and fear of what’s happening to move through our bodies until we better discern the right course of action—engaging in an active preparing, in this moment when the next right move can be so hard to see.

Whatever form of action calls to you, we say: do it. Act for peace.

Whatever you do, don’t let this be the day you turned away from the harm this nation is willing to cause in the world. Don’t let it be the day you chose to ignore the truth of suffering.

Today is a scary and horrific day, and how it will unfold is uncertain and may lead to terrible loss. But we cannot begin to prevent this and future atrocities if we will not sit with the reality of suffering and let that move us to act, in whatever way is available to us.

So we say again, whatever form of action calls to you: do it.

Today, when so-called leaders act only for war, let the people act for peace.

We strongly urge the U.S. government and other involved parties to cease this path of murder and destruction and to return to open and honest negotiations in good will. It is the only reasonable and practical course. 

We urge all members of Congress to assert their constitutional prerogative and to quickly approve legislation currently in both the House and the Senate regarding the War Powers Act. The decision to go to war is the most consequential and disastrous decision that humans can male. This decision must never be left to a single person, including the President. We urge everyone to contact their Members of Congress with this message.

Finally, we must clearly state that “regime change” in other countries is not the prerogative of the United States. It is the sole prerogative of the people of those countries. This is true no matter the quality of the government in question.

Let us choose the project of life, not the project of death.

Peace House invites you to come rethink what love and leadership look like in these times of struggle and uncertainty.

Join us for the long weekend spanning Valentine’s Day and President’s Day to learn together, sing together, and find new ways to protect our neighbors and show love for our community.

We’re hosting events in two locations: Peace House in Ashland, and the library in Medford.

MEDFORD LIBRARY EVENTS

Friday, February 13th, 6-8pm: Noncooperation 101

Words like authoritarianism, fascism, and autocracy are all being thrown around a lot these days. How does this moment in the U.S. compare to authoritarian take-overs in other places? We’ll talk about the current authoritarian threat, then share stories of noncooperation and how nonviolent noncooperation has been used to push back against anti-democratic forces.

Open to all, no registration required. See more event details.

Saturday, February 14th, 11am-2:30pm: Intro to Security Culture

What’s encryption? Why use Signal? How do you gauge when to share information with others and when to withhold it? Learn some of the basics of security culture, and how keeping your own information secure and safe can help protect others in your community.

Open to all, no registration required.

Saturday, February 14th, 3-5pm: Free Families : Songs and Community Building for Migrant Justice Now

Come sing together and learn how to weave song, healing cultural practice, and community-building. Bring your voice (yes, even those of you who don’t think you can sing—we want you here!) and your heart for migrant justice. Hosted by Lu Aya of Songs in the Key of Resistance and The Peace Poets.

Open to all, no registration required.

(These events are not sponsored or endorsed by the library.)

PEACE HOUSE IN ASHLAND EVENTS

Saturday, February 14th, 12-2pm: 4th Amendment Workplace Ashland Team Launch

Join Coalición Fortaleza’s 4th Amendment Workplace campaign for a potluck lunch and volunteer orientation! Space is limited, please sign up in advance.

POSTPONED – Monday, February 16th, 10-2pm: Economic Noncooperation and ICE: A Workshop and Strategy Session

Note: We are postponing this session to be in solidarity with the Day Without an Immigrant Action taking place in Medford! We will be rescheduling soon. If you’d like to get registration info for the next time, send an email to meg@peacehouse.net.

Boycotts, strikes, tax resistance — these are just a few of the nonviolent noncooperation tactics movements have used around the world to disrupt authoritarian forces. We’ll break down the mechanics of these tactics and look at how they might be deployed against the violent excesses of ICE in our current moment.

In this workshop we’ll share stories from global movements, review concepts like the pillars of support and basics of campaign strategy, then dig into creative campaign design ourselves to see what actions we might take together here in Oregon.

Workshop space is limited. To try and build a group bringing diverse viewpoints and experience levels, we are asking folks to fill out an application to participate. We’ll begin sending out acceptances on a rolling basis starting February 5th. 

If you have difficulty accessing the form please email with your interest to meg@peacehouse.net.

Monday, February 16th, 5-7pm: From President’s Day to July 4th: A Talk and Community Brainstorm

This July 4th will be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and we’re expecting an escalation in fascist rhetoric and pressure to narrowly define citizenship and patriotism. How can we find ways to push back on this culture of authoritarianism in the lead-up to July 4th? How do we honor our democratic ideals while recognizing the long history of harm in the U.S? What are alternative ways we can observe our interdependence and love of the land on July 4th? 

One-part presentation, one-part community brainstorming of ways to collectively observe July 4th this year.

MORE MEDFORD EVENTS

Many of our community partners and friends are also hosting events this weekend! Here are a few of the other happenings on our radar:

Join Unite Oregon and others in showing your support for all the immigrants in our community.

MORE ASHLAND EVENTS

Saturday, February 14th, 3-5pm: Jobs With Justice Valentine’s Day Party

Can’t make it to Medford our community song event? Consider joining the Jobs with Justice crew at Pioneer Hall and learn how to help out with their community meals and more!

Sunday February 15th, 6pm: The Power of Song with RV Peace Choir

Listen to the Rogue Valley Peace Choir perform with three other regional peace choirs in a mega-concert! Donations suggested but not required. Performance is at SOU Recital Hall, 450 S. Mountain Ave.

Also check out the Saturday evening performance and talent show at Wesley Hall: https://roguevalleypeacechoir.org/event/multi-choir-dinner/

January 30 will mark the anniversary of the assassination of one of humanity’s great teachers of nonviolence.  At this difficult time in our country and in the world, there is strength in remembering who he was and what he showed us. Many called him Mahatma (Great Soul).

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born October 2, 1869, in British colonial India. He earned a law degree in England, spent years as a lawyer defending Indian clients in South Africa, and finally returned to India in the early 1900s. He became head of the Indian National Congress in 1921. 

At the time, India was under a restrictive British colonial rule. There was tension and sometimes violence between Hindus and Muslims, the two largest religious blocks. Women were controlled from birth by men. Untouchables were those who were consigned by custom, religious belief, and law to do the most menial jobs and to live in poverty—the throw-aways of Indian society. The Congress was an activist organization dedicated to ending or lessening poverty, increasing the equality and rights of women, promoting religious and ethnic harmony, eliminating the category of “untouchables” in Indian society, and especially working for Indian self-rule (hind swaraj).

Eventually, Gandhi discarded his British lifestyle and adopted the clothing, diet, and lifestyle of traditional Indian peasant communities. He began what he called his “experiments with truth.” He practiced abstinence—fasting from food periodically and practicing chastity, although he was married. He later felt that he had been selfish in failing to consider how all this might have affected his wife, Kasturbai. Gandhi reflected on all of this in his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Abstinence became for Gandhi both a spiritual discipline and a political statement that challenged the violence that accompanies the acquisition of wealth, goods, or power.

By the 1930s, Gandhi was a leader in what was known as satyagraha, a concept difficult to define easily in English. It was manifest as campaigns of nonviolent civil disobedience and non-cooperation. Nonviolent civil protest might include not trying to defend one’s body when attacked by British colonial military or their Indian police subordinates. Gandhi and other satyagrahi believed that a nonviolent response to extreme violence could touch the conscience of those engaged in violent repression—especially those who were the front line servants of a repressive system—police, soldiers, government agents—without whom oppressive rule could not be enforced. Civil disobedience is not necessarily everyone’s path.

Non-cooperation or non-participation in evil or repressive systems became a foundational principle—not just a tactic—of nonviolent action. Gandhi led several major campaigns that became emblematic of non-cooperation with or withdrawal of support from British colonial rule. Most famous was the Great Salt March. The British colonial government demanded that Indians pay a tax on the salt they bought, a tax that helped fund Britain’s colonial rule over India. To enforce this, the colonial authorities made it illegal for ordinary Indians to make or gather salt. In 1930, Gandhi led thousands of people in a 250 mile walk to the sea where he and some of the marchers gathered sea salt, deliberately breaking what they saw as an unjust law, and withdrawing their support for colonial rule by evading the salt tax. Gandhi and many others were beaten and arrested, and he said he regretted that many who followed him suffered such violence.

Gandhi also led a campaign to stop buying British textiles, and instead to make cotton clothing in home and community workshops. Gandhi began making his own cotton cloth on a home spinning wheel. He said that his time at his spinning wheel each day was part of his practice of nonviolence. Cotton was grown in India and the clothing was lighter, more traditionally Indian, more suitable to a warm climate, and did not depend on British imports. It did not escape notice that spinning, by social norm and tradition, was considered work for women, and that Gandhi was deliberately violating that gendered division of labor.

When Gandhi realized that this boycott of British cloth affected the incomes and jobs of sheep herders and textile workers in northern England, he went to England and spent days among the textile workers explaining the struggle of Indians for self-government and how non-cooperation was necessary. For Gandhi, nonviolent actions must be mindful and not inflict even unintended violence to others. Consequences matter. This was, and remains, a difficult requirement.

In the 1940s, during World War 2, Britain relied on its British-trained Indian soldiers to fight against Japanese forces in southeast Asia, even as an independence movement was growing in India. After the war, Britain had little choice but to agree to Indian independence, which began in 1947. But independence also encouraged two opposed movements. Many in India’s large Muslim minority demanded an independent Muslim state separate from India. On the other side, an extremist Hindu nationalist movement developed that demanded Hindu dominance and the expulsion of Muslims. 

Gandhi’s vision was always of a pluralistic and inclusive India. He led the nonviolent movement against the partition of India and for a tolerant and open society. Despite this movement, partition did occur.  Parts of India, were carved out as the new Muslim nation of Pakistan. Chaos, religious violence, and slaughter accompanied this, as hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Hindus moved in opposite directions, Muslims toward Pakistan, Hindus out of those areas, passing and often attacking and killing each other in the process The carnage became an international spectacle.

Gandhi continued to lead prayer meetings through this disaster. Before one of these meetings, on January 30, 1948, he was assassinated  by a young man described as a Hindu nationalist who believed Gandhi’s inclusive vision was treason to Hindus and India. By chance or intent, the nationalist movement to which the assassin belonged had adopted an ancient Hindu symbol that the Nazis had adapted to form the swastika. 

A devout Hindu, Gandhi read the Christian Gospels and wrote that Jesus’ sermon on the mount “went straight to my heart.” It commanded us to love our enemies, do good to all, not covet  earthly wealth. We know that Gandhi’s life and example influenced many famous people—Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein, many others. Ordinary people around the world, including my Polish grandfather, also found inspiration in Gandhi’s life. The flag of modern India has the figure of a spinning wheel, a reminder of Gandhi’s teaching of simplicity, self-reliance, now interpreted also as national sovereignty. 

Across years, distance, and differences, we can see the ugly similarities between Gandhi’s situation and our own—religious nationalism, empire, rampant racism, untouchable or throw-away people, violent greed, might makes right, extreme patriarchy, and more. 

When I was a Jesuit seminarian in the 1960s, I found and read Gandhi’s autobiography and a collection of his other writings in our library. A lifetime of seeing nonviolent resistance by people in the Caribbean, Central America, and the United States has given me my own understanding of what Gandhi meant, and a few simple beliefs. 

Nonviolence is  a way of life, not just an occasional tactic. Nonviolence may be a way of appealing to the conscience of others, but it is first of all for oneself. Each person’s practice of nonviolence is unique. We are all compromised in some ways by the realities of our world and our place and time. We each live nonviolence as best we can. We cannot afford to be “purists” about the practice of nonviolence for ourselves or others. 

The core of Gandhi’s nonviolence was his understanding of truth.  For Gandhi, truth was grounded in the realization of the unity and sacredness of everything (ahimsa). We are all one. Truth was factual—a sense of how our actions affect others— but it was more.than that. The search for truth is a humble path. We do not seek truth to exercise power over others but to clarify human relationships. The search for truth is difficult and constant. Today more than ever, this search for truth must contend with a multiplicity of false narratives, images, and idols. 

The opposite of nonviolence is fear. In its extreme form, fear may become cowardice or clinging to false justifications for doing nothing. Fear is a terrible violence that is used to control others. However we live our nonviolence, and whatever we do, in the face of injustice or oppression we must do something. We cannot do nothing out of fear or indifference. Those who use fear as a weapon are most often themselves afraid. 

Nonviolence is not a solitary choice but is always a community affair. Community is a powerful manifestation of nonviolence and an antidote to fear.  The essence of nonviolence. is the realization—the truth—that whatever happens to one affects all. 

I can write this, and we may already have reflected on all of it many times, but knowing what it means and how to adapt and live it in this time and place is an ongoing experiment. Thank you, Mr. Gandhi and all our ancestors and predecessors who have shown us by your lives the search for truth and the power of nonviolence, each in your own way. 

James Phillips is an anthropologist, a former Jesuit, and a member of the Peace House Board. He has studied and participated in movements of social change and human rights in Latin America and the U.S. over several decades.

“I want to leave behind a belief that good politics means living in a state of anxiety and dread,” I said. I had become sure that, though the election outcomes of that year were surely reason to feel agitated and anxious, we could not meet the challenges of 2025 working only from those emotions. Even now, as we see those outcomes morph into their harmful consequences, I remain convinced of this. Love, care, a sense of self-worth and dignity, a belief in community — these are what will allow us to conquer the forces of hate and greed.

What did I want to increase with the increasing light? “Focus and friendship.” I wanted to find a path I could commit to, and I wanted to “find my people,” to figure out how I might really show up for others in these times.

And now, here I am, just over a year later, in a place I could not have predicted, but which is surely the outcome of that moment of intention-setting. In early 2025, I had been to Peace House before, had volunteered once or twice for meal prep at Uncle Food’s Diner. But that was all. So it has been a year of learning about the long history and deep roots of this institution, and finding all the ways it has helped shape life here in Ashland, the county, and beyond. And I am still learning. But it seems that at Peace House I have found focus and friendship both, and most certainly, a means by which to take action in these endlessly difficult times. I’m looking forward to finding all the ways to show up for you, my new community, in the coming months.

And I have been overwhelmed by all the kindness and support and the ways I have seen all those involved with Peace House show up for us in this moment of transition. Thank you, thank you, to everyone helping steer us through this, especially our board, and all those who have been helping put us on a stable financial footing for the coming year.

Just this week, we’ve had a supporter come forth to match all new donations made during January, up to $10k. So if you’ve been considering making a donation and haven’t yet, now’s a great moment. Recurring monthly donations, which are especially impactful for small organizations, will be matched at their full value for the year. Donate, and be a part of helping set the foundation for us to face these times together, not from a place of anxiety, but from a base of love and a sense of community.

In continuing building our foundations and community both, we’re starting off 2026 with more ways for you to engage with Peace House and to get to know its new and old faces. This month, we’re beginning two occasional series: first, “Tea with the ED,” when you can join me for tea in the Peace House kitchen for casual conversation. Come ask all the questions you want, and let’s get to know one another! This month we’ll be hosting these from 1 to 3 p.m. on Monday, January 12th, and Thursday, January 29th.

Second is a topical “brown bag” series, where we’ll make space to address the heavy issues of the moment in a friendly environment. The first of these is Friday, January 23rd, at noon, when we’ll have the opportunity to put the current events in Venezuela into the broader context of U.S. involvement in Latin America, with the help of Peace House Board Chair Jim Phillips. Bring your lunch and your willingness to learn; we’ll have coffee, tea, and snacks to share.

And save the date for February 14-16, when we hope to bring you a diverse set of programs with local partners to think about how we can take action together. We’re calling it “Love is Justice in Public” (as Cornel West so famously put it). Come join us for a new way to honor love on Valentine’s Day, and a new way to look at leadership for President’s Day. On the agenda so far: refusing war through tax resistance, and strengthening the 4th Amendment Workplace campaign in Ashland to protect our neighbors from ICE. More details soon.

Now more than ever, as each day brings hard and harder news, is the time for us to gather together. So I hope to see you at one or more of these events. And I thank you again for the warm welcome and the chance to serve our community through Peace House.

With gratitude and hope for the coming year,

Your new director,

Meg