What is your plan for casting your vote in Turkiye's upcoming elections?

Hello!

We do not need to emphasize the importance of voting in this year’s elections. It is important for us all to prioritize this important civic duty among our other responsibilities as adults. If you are a Turkish Citizen and living in the Bay Area below are the links you need to check prior to going to the to the Los Angeles Consulate to cast your vote :

  1. Go to TC Yuksek Secmen Kurlu Website and enter your TC Number. Including your Turkish Birth Certificate serial number along with the letters that follow the number. If you do not enter the right numbers along with the letters, it will show up as if you are not in the voter list for Los Angeles. You may need to do it a few times, to get it right.

  2. You can also go to this link to research your status if you have pin code.

  3. The Consulate General is located at 8500 Wilshire Blvd, Ste 900, Beverly Hills, CA, United States, California Telephone (310) 228-4467 Email: consulate.losangeles@mfa.gov.tr

  4. The voting hours of the Consulate-General is 09.00-21.00PM

  5. Show Up and Vote!

In addition to voting :

  1. Contribute towards a ticket so those who lost their homes in the earthquake can go back to their region to vote. More information about this initiative is HERE

DAY 6 OF BTF EARTHQUAKE RELIEF FUND UPDATE

THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFUL CONTRIBUTIONS

DURING THESE VERY DIFFICULT TIMES, WE HAVE BEEN ASKING OUR COMMUNITY TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE BRIDGE TO TURKIYE FUNDRAISER WHICH IS CURRENTLY $321,689 of OUR GOAL OF $350,000. THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFUL CONTRIBUTIONS SO FAR. IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE SO PLEASE DONATE TO BRIDGE TO TURKIYE FUND.

As you know two massive 7.8 earthquakes have struck southeastern Turkey and felt in multiple countries... Severe damage and many casualties are reported. Turkey has requested immediate international help. Keeping everyone living in the area in our thoughts. Please help us raise funds to help the people who got affected. I've included information about Bridge to Turkiye Fund below. Thank you for your support!!

BTF is partnering with a local trusted NGO: AHBAP to provide fast relief. They are on the ground and preparing detailed list of needs. We will provide more information on the impact of this fundraiser this week.

Bridge to Türkiye Fund is a 100% volunteer-run, grassroots philanthropic bridge between the United States and Turkey. Organized for charitable purposes, BTF is devoted to identifying and mobilizing grassroots diaspora resources in order to raise and distribute philanthropic funds benefiting the socio-economically disadvantaged segments of Turkish society.

Facebook takes care of the donation processing with no fees, the link to this page is HERE

PLEASE continue to share with your networks to continue to provide support in the upcoming days.

100% of your donation with BTF is used for this relief fund.

If you would like to make donations, below is a direct link to Bridge To Turkiye Fund:

HTTPS://BRIDGETOTURKIYE.ORG/

DAY 5 OF BTF EARTHQUAKE RELIEF FUND

THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFUL CONTRIBUTIONS

DURING THESE VERY DIFFICULT TIMES, WE HAVE BEEN ASKING OUR COMMUNITY TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE BRIDGE TO TURKIYE FUNDRAISER WHICH IS CURRENTLY $312,648 of OUR GOAL OF $350,000.THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFUL CONTRIBUTIONS. IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE SO PLEASE DONATE TO BRIDGE TO TURKIYE FUND.

As you know two massive 7.8 earthquakes have struck southeastern Turkey and felt in multiple countries... Severe damage and many casualties are reported. Turkey has requested immediate international help. Keeping everyone living in the area in our thoughts. Please help us raise funds to help the people who got affected. I've included information about Bridge to Turkiye Fund below. Thank you for your support!!

BTF is partnering with a local trusted NGO: AHBAP to provide fast relief. They are on the ground and preparing detailed list of needs. We will provide more information on the impact of this fundraiser this week.

Bridge to Türkiye Fund is a 100% volunteer-run, grassroots philanthropic bridge between the United States and Turkey. Organized for charitable purposes, BTF is devoted to identifying and mobilizing grassroots diaspora resources in order to raise and distribute philanthropic funds benefiting the socio-economically disadvantaged segments of Turkish society.

Facebook takes care of the donation processing with no fees, the link to this page is HERE

PLEASE continue to share with your networks to continue to provide support in the upcoming days.

100% of your donation with BTF is used for this relief fund.

If you would like to make donations, below is a direct link to Bridge To Turkiye Fund:

HTTPS://BRIDGETOTURKIYE.ORG/

THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTFUL CONTRIBUTIONS

As we watch the death toll rising over 5200 this morning, we are deeply saddened and send our condolEnces to those who have been impacted BY THIS DISASTER.

We also thank those of you who have already donated to Bridge To Turkiye Fund.

Together with your help BTF transferred $50K yesterday to AHBAP and an additional $100K today as PHASE 1 RELIEF. Thank you for every single person for contributing for this cause. Within the first 12 hours. BTF was able to raise this money with your thoughtful and generous contributions.

PLEASE continue to share with your networks to continue to provide support in the upcoming days.

100% of your donation with BTF is used for this relief fund.

If you would like to make donations, below is a link to Bridge To Turkiye Fund:

HTTPS://BRIDGETOTURKIYE.ORG/

Celebrating Turkish Republic Day.


“Today we celebrate Turkey’s Republic Day, known locally as Cumhuriyet Bayramı. On this day in 1923, the new Turkish parliament issued a proclamation that adopted a new constitution, establishing the Republic of Turkey after more than 600 years under the Ottoman Empire.

That same day, Mustafa Kemal was elected president of the Republic. He would later be named “Atatürk” (father of the Turks) and declared Republic Day to be Turkey’s most important national holiday.

Turkish flags and portraits of Atatürk are seen all over Turkey on this celebratory occasion. Citizens attend cultural events, including theater, poetry readings, and other festivities.

The day is also an excellent occasion to visit historic sites like the Atatürk’s memorial in Ankara, where many government officials lay wreaths in his honor. Festivities include plenty of music, flags, and torches, finally capped by a fireworks display.”- Source: https://www.google.com/doodles/turkey-republic-day-2019

Here are some celebrations from the past Republic with our community.



Şeker Bayramınız Kutlu Olsun!

If you are celebrating Bayram today, here is a lovely article about beautiful Ramadan Traditions from around the world.

Some of us who grew up on the coast of Turkey, as children today was the exciting holiday where we would be treated by our elders to some delicious mastic candy, akide, leblebi sekeri, and many more sweets. Turkish coffee would be accompanied with mint liquor after feasts of deliciously prepared meals shared with family and guests… Happy Bayram to you and your family.

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Celebrating Earth Day & International Children's Day

Hello!

Every year, on earth day we are reminded of our connectedness to not just our people communities, but also our physical community, our Earth, and how our individual actions and choices today directly impact us and our own environment tomorrow and for generations to come.

As the Bay Area Turkish Society, we brought together images of the past years of Children’s Festivals we hosted for our community in the Bay Area with the hopes that they will bring a smile to your faces and a ray of sunshine to your day.

In Turkey on April 23rd, we celebrate “Ulusal Egemenlik ve Cocuk Bayrami.”

On this day, we also wanted to share this lovely article which is beautifully illustrated in New York Times about Climate Change.

Here is to a future that is sustainable, clean and peaceful for all the children in our world.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/18/climate/climate-change-future-kids.html?action=click&block=more_in_recirc&impression_id=ba930887-a44c-11eb-b7dc-f173c6e3cb47&index=5&pgtype=Article&region=footer

We wish you a happy, fulfilling, and heartfelt International Children’s Day!

We are forever touched by the words of Amanda Gorman, poet laureate.

As the nation celebrates a new beginning with the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, we are forever touched by the words of Amanda Gorman, the United States' first-ever youth poet laureate. She recited a powerful poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration, she was able to sum up with emotion and beautiful eloquence the idea of what this country came close to losing.

When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.
We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken,
but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.

And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.

Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
This effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith, we trust,
for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it at its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,
but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’

We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:
If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the golden hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
In every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country,
our people, diverse and beautiful, will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

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Hello!

Over the years we celebrated many holidays together as the Bay Area Turkish Society. While we are together apart, in the past we have been touched by our community’s generosity so many times. Below is just an example of one of these meaningful and joyful contributions: A wreath collection that was designed for BTS and donated to our holiday fundraiser in 2017 that cheered our homes by Sema Altan. Wishing you and your family a happy and safe holiday season.

Warm regards from all of us at The Berkeley Turkish Society-