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Saturday, March 29, 2003

By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The PEACEburgh Project continues to take wing. The artsy local anti-war movement, which has been distributing colorful posters featuring a child-decorated "peace bird," is organizing a public "paint-in" of more such birds.

The event runs from 3 to 6 p.m. tomorrow at the Wilkins Community Center at South Braddock Avenue and Charleston Street in Regent Square.

Sewickley artist Cindy Snodgrass, who helped create the poster, will lead children and adults in creating their own paper peace birds for an upcoming art installation.

Members of the Renaissance Wimmin's Drumming Circle, along with other musicians and poets, will perform. At 4 p.m. practitioners from the Pittsburgh Caring Center will lead a prayer circle for peace.

Attendees are invited to bring their own musical instruments, paints and even snacks to share.

PEACEburgh, co-sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center and the Rosenberg Institute for Peace and Justice, aims to encourage community art and creative expression to further peace. Since starting three weeks ago, it has distributed some 3,000 posters and 4,000 pins and plans to add window decals and T-shirts.

For more information, visit the Web site www.peaceburgh.org.

Also tomorrow in nearby Frick Park, the Pittsburgh Organizing Group is sponsoring a "Day of Resistance," including a peace picnic and anti-war rally and march.

The picnic begins at 1 p.m., the rally at 2 p.m. and the march at 3 p.m. Organizers say the march does not have a permit and is meant to be "a non-violent act of civil disobedience." For details, go to the Web site www.organizepittsburgh.org.

A full calendar of local peace and justice events -- including "vigils for peace" happening in a half-dozen city neighborhoods at noon every Saturday and a silent candlelight vigil from 7 to 7:30 p.m. Sundays at Frick Park at the corner of Forbes and Braddock avenues -- can be found at www.thomasmertoncenter.org/calendar.htm.

The center is planning a silent funeral march to mourn dead American soldiers, Iraqis and others for Thursday evening in Oakland.